Going Through The Motions

In the final seen Gabriel is realizing that he has changed as a person significantly and the things that he used to enjoy with his family have become nothing more than mandatory events. "One by one they were all becoming shades." He feels as though these people are just not his speed anymore, and that he is moving forward while they are stuck as actors on a stage that never changes. "Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age." Here he is realizing that the man that truly loved his wife died for her; what he did was honorable and he had done out of love. Gabriel realizes that his wife was never truly in love with him, because she had already given her heart to someone else. Gabriel also realizes that he has never truly been in love himself. He has been a shade of grey; just going through the motions of life. "His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world:" Gabriel knows now that he is just like is family, living a lifeless life, just going through the routine. Their is no color to his world. The whole story Gabriel is kind of separating himself from these people, but it seems in the end he is realizing that he is just like them. A shade of grey.