Furious, he seizes a knife—the same weapon with which he killed Basil—and drives it into the portrait in an attempt to destroy it. From below, Dorian’s servants hear a cry and a clatter.

What does Dorian stop basil from doing at the end of chapter 2?

Basil decides to destroy the portrait rather than have it upset the lives of the three men, but Dorian stops him. “It would be murder,” Dorian says.

What happens in Chapter 4 of The Picture of Dorian Gray?

Dorian has not just fallen in love with an actress; he has fallen in love with her performances. He does not know the girl at all; yet, by the end of the chapter, they are engaged to be married. His ambition is not to build a relationship but to develop a star.

In Chapter 8, Dorian struggles briefly with his conscience. He throws away the last scraps of his conscience and becomes a completely selfish being. By the time he goes to the opera with Lord Henry, he doesn’t even feel protective about the portrait, which up to this point was the one thing that he still cared about.