Yes… you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity… I loved you because you were marvellous… You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid… You are nothing to me now… Without your art, you are nothing.
Dorian’s speech is a manifesto of aesthetic cruelty. He loved Sibyl-as-art, not Sibyl-as-person; once art falters, love ends. Wilde stacks short, hard verdicts to mimic how rage simplifies the world. The juxtaposition between Sibyl’s awakening and Dorian’s dismissal exposes the lie in his earlier worship. It’s a key turn: he chooses appearances over relationship and begins training himself to feel that choice as sophistication. The cadence of “you are nothing” is chillingly transactional. Anyone who’s felt reduced to performance will recognize the wound.