The Picture of Dorian Gray Essay

Lu Li
AP English – Mr. George
Feb. / 23/ 2009
The Picture of Dorian Gray Essay

Punish or Forgive

_People along the stream of history have always struggled to find the way to their salvation. Jesus suggested in The Bible that we could strengthen our weakness and alleviate our burdens of guilt through prayers: “Keep alert and pray. Otherwise temptation will overpower you. For though the spirit is willing enough, the body is weak!” (Matthew 26:41). So what should be the prayer of man to a most righteous God regarding sin? Some said that a man should always ask for forgiveness. Whereas others, such as the character Dorian Gray, claimed that “there was purification in punishment. Not ‘Forgive us our sins’ but ‘Smite us for our iniquities’ should be the prayer of man to a most just God” (Wilde 226). However, the prayer for redemption is a combination of both statements. Bearing the punishment with a faithful heart and receiving forgiveness are the two paddles of the boat which, not only lead one out of the whirlpool of temptation, but also to the harbor of ultimate salvation.

_First of all, punishment is a God-given gift to us because it gives us sinners a second chance to make things right. In the book The Scarlet Letter, the main character, Hester Prynne, cried out when the governors wanted to take her baby Pearl away: “God gave me the child! […] Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin?” (Hawthorne 103). We can see the great strength of Hester's maternal instincts here. Hester, as a loving and compassionate mother, had said that Pearl is a part of her body, like the scarlet letter, which is a torture, but somehow a relief for her too. Pearl is "the scarlet letter endowed with life” (93); she is living evidence of Hester's fatal sin. On the other hand, Hester, as a sinner who committed adultery, has to bear seeing her sin growing up every single day. However, because Pearl is a living sin, she gave Hester a chance to be able to change her. She is not identical to the scarlet letter – all Hester can do is to embroider it in gold thread; she is, indeed, the hope of change and redemption for Hester. By teaching her child to be a good Christian, Hester can make her way to Heaven too. No wonder that Hester does not want to let her precious little one go. Pearl is a gift from God - a second chance for Hester to be back in God's arms. It is clear from here that punishments may change, or at least minimize the evil identity of sins.

_Bearing the burden of sins is the punishment a sinner deserves. Therefore, punishment should be the “ritual of the washing away of sins” (Miller 20). Arthur Dimmesdale realized at the end of his life that bearing one’s sin publicly is a part of the punishment God grants to sinners. God punishes those who have sinned “by bringing me [one] hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people” (Hawthorne 229). Hester was forced to wear the scarlet letter and was exiled by society; while Proctor was arrested and thrown into the dungeon; and Dimmesdale suffered from the burning sin on his heart. As counter examples, Abigail ran away from the town, leaving the chaos behind, which was caused by her sinful revenge and Dorian Gray escaped from punishment by letting his portrait bear the burden of his sins. Dorian and Abigail were never to be redeemed. We can see from here that people who escaped from their punishments, were at last, lost in the dark and somber woods where God’s lights of mercy could not shine. Therefore, it is crystal clear that of the five characters who have sinned, only the ones who have been tortured by their sin got their salvation from God.

_People who are looking for salvation should be aware of the two essential parts of punishment – the physical torture of the body and the spiritual burden of the heart. Proctor was being persecuted by the witch trails and ended up on death row. Hester was made to stand on the scaffold three hours a day to be humiliated by the public, even though she just had a baby. The stigma God marked on each sinner’s face is another kind of physical punishment:

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the molding of his hands even (Wilde 153-154).

Because Dorian Gray traded his soul with the painting, he did not have to bear the burning stigma of sin on his face. Although Dorian had gone through some extreme spiritual tortures, the lack of physical punishment is one of the reasons why God did not redeem him. Therefore, to some extent, it was wise for Dimmesdale to beat himself because the missing physical torture he deserved had been found through his somewhat irrational actions.

_Spiritual punishments always have more profound influences on people. Sinners always suffer from the burden of their hearts. Proctor was accused by the court of witchcraft in public, while bearing the shame of committing adultery deep in his heart. Hester was banished from the community and had to bear the burden of the scarlet letter on her chest everyday. Dimmesdale was mentally tortured by his duplicity – holy as a saint in front of the community, but ignominious as a sinner deep in his corrupted heart. The scalding stigma gradually becomes a motivation for the washing away of sins.

_Dorian Gray also suffered spiritually. He was so terrified that he thought “conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them visible form, and make them move before one!” (205). Due to this miserable situation, Dorian Gray tried to free himself from the spiritual torture by spending time in opium dens, “where one could buy oblivion - dens of horror, where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new” (189). Although the painting is bearing the burden of Dorian's sins physically, the spiritual torture of the punishment is taking his breath away. Lord Henry told him “to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul” (189). Embracing this philosophy of life, Dorian was trying to alleviate his pain by anesthetizing it through drugs. All he ever wanted to do was “to escape, to go away, to forget” (210). He did escape from the punishments he deserved; however, this wrong attitude towards redemption drove Dorian even further away from God and His mercy.

_Although punishment is a necessity on the way to redemption, forgiveness is the key for sinners to reopen the gate to the Kingdom of Heaven. God said that “though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). God was trying to tell us that no matter how sinful we are, if we tried our best to wash away our previous sins, we are still going to be the sons and daughters of our Father. Keep in mind that the soul of a man is flexible: “It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect” (Wilde 221). A soul can be made perfect; therefore, the hope to wash away our sins is still there.

_In order to regain an unsullied heart, the sinner must be open to his or her sins publicly: “It was his [a sinner’s] duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public atonement. There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he [a man] could do would cleanse him till he had told his own sin” (228).

_Receiving forgiveness publicly is just the first step – redemption is mainly an issue between men and God; therefore, forgiving ourselves is the second step to salvation. Dorian Gray should be seen as a bad example of the washing away of sins. He tried to be forgiven by simply forgetting the sins he committed: "I always want to forget what I have been doing" (186). However, he does not understand that forgetting is not forgiving. Forgetting is a result of forgiveness, but the reverse of it is misleading and false – it is, indeed, a denial of sins. One cannot be forgiven unless he is open to punishment for sins. We have to do penance, and truly forgive ourselves first in order to be redeemed ultimately by God.

_However, God is the final judge – He is the one who can grant us our salvation. Would He forgive people who have sinned? Sinners in the world are, at least in some ways, similar to Dorian Gray:

He had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption, and given horror to his fancy; that he had been evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame (225).

“But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him” (225) and for us? The answer is positive: “God knows; and He is merciful!” (Hawthorne 229). Bearing the punishments of our sins gratefully and having the desire to be truly forgiven by God can purify a stained soul. As long as our hearts are committed to God, He will give His unconditional love to us, even those who have sinned, “for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

_A pure soul is more valuable than anything else in the world: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36); therefore, a lost man should do anything he can to purify his corrupted heart. Punishment is fire – it tortures the sinners mentally and physically, while it purifies their souls. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a sinner must have the courage to burn his ugly soul into ashes, in order to rise again with a purified heart. Then, our loving Father will open His arms and embrace those sinners with delight, for He cares more about atonement than sins. The closing prayer of the Penitential Rite expresses this statement perfectly: “May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life” (Wikipedia).



Works Cited

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 1976.
Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam reissue, 2003.
Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2003.
The Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Illinois: Wheaton, 1996.
Wikipedia. 15 January 2009. GNU Free Documentation License. 26 February 2009