In “The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2 is very important because it illustrates the key scene of Dorian’s pact with the devil. Under Lord Henry’s influence, Dorian becomes self conscious of his own beauty and discovers the sense of vanity. He starts to wish an exchange of his signs of age with the portrait, so that he will stay forever young and the portrait grow older. His self consciousness and the wish it leads to will spoil his soul by pushing him unconsciously into the error of an unforgivable sin : despair. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. It will never be older than this particular day of June… If it were only the other way! If it where I who was to be always young and the picture that was to grow old! I would give my soul for that!”. The last sentence shows his determination to dedicate his entire soul to sin if it is to accomplish his wish of keeping eternally young (Dorian could be affected by the Peter Pan syndrome). There’s also another reference to the Faustian myth, when the woman at the opium den says “Prince Charming sold himself to the devil for a pretty face”.
Like Faust, Dorian seduces a young woman and leads her to her death. He falls in love (or think he does) with an actress called Sibyl Vane. This girl is blind in her innocence, like Dorian used to be before the arrival of Lord Henry in his life. She is, like Dorian, beautiful and talented because she is innocent, unconscious of love and its vanity. But when Dorian steps into her life, she becomes totally different, and her self-consciousness ruins her talent, whereupon Dorian loses all interest in her.
The Faust legend raises the question of eternal damnation due to the unforgivable sin of despair. Certainly, it’s a sin for the Faustian character to make a pact with the devil. However, he has a chance to espace, even at the end of his life, if he repents and asks for God’s forgiveness. In Dorian’s case, it was like if he felt beyond God’s help, which is an insult to God. Despair is the only unpardonable sin because it keeps the sinner from asking God’s help. The proof is that, in opposite with Faust who ends up in getting redemption through good works and repentance, Dorian fails to redeem himself because he only does it with half of his heart.
By thinking further on about the Faust myth, we might ask ourselves about Henry’s role and its impact on Dorian. Even if he his not the devil literally, he certainly seems to play the devil’s part by spoiling Dorian’s soul. He makes him conscious of his own beauty (which implies the sin of vanity) and robbs him of that form of innocence Dorian used to have. Lord Henry pushes Dorian into sin by introducing him to the sense of Hedonism by saying expressions like “What the gods give, they take away.”, meaning Dorian should enjoy his youth and offering him the “Yellow book” that will have a big influence on Dorian’s personality. Lord Henry changes Dorian view of life by pushing him to detach himself from tragic events like Sibyl’s suicide. Even if Lord Henry’s role in Dorian’s downfall is not explicitly defined, we can affirm that Lord Henry is aware of his demonic role because we see in the novel how he enjoys controlling people and playing with their minds.
Finally, I think that we can clearly say that Lord Henry plays the role of Mephistopheles in the story by starting to blacken Dorian’s soul. Under Lord Henry’s influence, Dorian becomes self conscious of his own beauty, discovers the sense of vanity and looses his innocence. His self consciousness and the wish it leads to will spoil his soul by pushing him unconsciously into the error of an unforgivable sin : despair. We see how determined Dorian is to dedicate his entire soul to sin if it is to accomplish his wish of keeping eternally young. The Faust legend raises the question of eternal damnation due to the unforgivable sin of despair : this is where Faust gets redemption whereas Dorian ultimately fails to redeem himself.
