Goodness Tainted Thoreau Quote Analysis Essay -- essays research paper

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from justice tainted.?-Walden, Henry David ThoreauThere are two ways that this quotation might be interpreted, one way focuses on a mortals goodness, or lack of, and the former(a) concerns benign or malicious intentions.The quotation could be interpreted to mean that it is a sadder thing for a good person to decline into immorality than for a bad person to do something wicked. This interpretation of the quote can be illustrated by the book The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray enters the story as an enchanting, vivacious, almost sweetened youth, comparable to the beautiful Greek god Adonis. As the story progresses, Dorian gets drawn into a habit of hedonism, financial waste, and self destruction, and this moral decline is paralleled by gradual distortion of his once beautiful portrait. At the end of the book, after Dorian had fallen so far as to commit murder, he is ball over to find that his image has become bloated and hideous, and in a fit of outrage, he stabs his portrait, therefore killing himself. All in all, Dor...