The Choices we Make Dictate the Life We Live!

(Argumentative Essay)

Every person has to make a lot of choices every day. Some of them are good and easy, but some of them are bad and difficult. None of us is perfect, and our choices aren’t perfect, either. If we make a right choice, we are happier, and our life gets better and more perfect. But, our life gets unhappy and problematic when we make a bad decision. It is most important to think twice before we make all our choices and decisions, important and simple, because they dictate our life.

With the help of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, I would like to prove the wrong choices of the protagonist. He made three wrong choices. They are: the betrayal of his best friend, the wish to remain young at the expense of this soul, and his choice to live like Lord Henry.

First, Dorian preferred a new friend to Basil. The artist was a very good person. He said that “he put too much of himself into the portrait”. (Page 6) He didn’t want to exhibit the portrait because it was a part of his own soul. He was the real friend for young man. The painter hated the way Lord Henry talked about his married life. He said that “the charm of marriage was that it made a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties”. (Page 8) Basil mentioned that “Henry Wotton had a bad influence on everybody, except himself”. (Page 16) But Dorian didn’t comprehend that. Lord Henry’s life was more exciting and interesting, but immoral. He said that “he chose his friend for their looks, his acquaintances for their good characters, and his enemies for their good intellect”. (Page 11) He used the special criteria when he selected every kind of the people around him. Those people were considered like items that made the Lord’s life more stimulating. Unfortunately, Dorian preferred Lord Wotton to Basil. Obviously, it’s terrible to betray a friend, it’s like to betray a part of our soul.

Second, this choice was connected with Dorian’s soul. He liked his young body and his beautiful face. He “was certainly wonderfully handsome young man, with finely-curved scarlet lips, frank blue eyes, and crisp gold hair”. All the “candour of youth was there, as well as all youth’s passionate purity”. (Page 19) It was impossible for Dorian to lose all that. Those physical features made his life so attractive, amusing, and full of the new feelings. He didn’t understand that soul was our most important part, because our body is what we are, and our soul is who we are. Passing the time, our body gets worse and weak, but our soul is improving all the time. Inopportunely, Dorian preferred his body and the wrong life style to onest one.

Third, Dorian made the last choice; he decided to live accordingly the Lord Henry’s philosophy. The portrait fascinated Lord Henry with Dorian’s nature and a beautiful soul. In the first chapter, Lady Agatha said that Dorian was “very earnest, and had a beautiful nature”. (Page 16) Dorian was in love with a beautiful girl, Sibyl Vane. He wanted to marry with her. Then Lord Henry told Dorian that she was only the first one, but not the only one in his life. The moment when Dorian met Henry Wotton completely transformed his life. The advices of Harry destroyed Dorian’s soul and the life of people around him. For example, Lord Henry told him not to marry Sibyl, and he did so. This decision ruined Sibyl life, and she committed suicide.

In sum, very many people make wrong choices like Dorian every day. I think all of us may make a wrong decision. We are just human. But not everyone can recognize them. A strong person isn’t the one who doesn’t make wrong decisions or choices, but the one who has the inner strength to confess and to remedy them. We should think really well before we make any choice. I know that I’ll make a lot of wrong choices in my life, but I hope I’ll have enough of the inner power to repair them. Certainly, I don’t want to make any terrible or incorrigible mistake, because our choices are the reflection of our soul. So, I’ll do everything possible to improve my soul making only the well thoughtful choices. Let me quote, J. K. Rowling who wrote in her book “Harry Potter”, “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is a part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1257