What would you be willing to sell your soul for?

In this unit, Monsters and Ourselves, we learn how human nature is discovered and revealed through literature. Human nature is a tricky thing, everyone has different qualities, different morals and opinions, however, everyone at some point in their life reverts to their primary desires and our true human nature reveals itself. It is what makes us human and drives us to make decisions that we normally would never think we would. The question "What would you be willing to sell your soul for?" came up in class most answered that they probably would never give that up for something in their life not even eternal life which would virtually end the possibility of ever suffering in eternal torture or "hell." In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian was willing to sell his soul for beauty for the rest of his lifetime. We see how this decision to have power, to be forever popular because of his beauty ultimately poisons the young man. Dorian is influenced by Lord Henry to pursue a life of pleasure and to ignore moral codes. Through the years Dorian became more and more corrupt, he grew into a monster that only he could see in his portrait. The portrait reveals Dorian's true nature as it ages from the sins that Dorian has committed through his corruption and his saught out glory of leading a pleasurable life. Dorian initially made the decision to sell his soul for beauty, but he slowly sold more and more of himself for this beauty and it finally catches up to him resulting in his death. Today, I just so happened to stop on Oprah talking with Rosie O'Donnell and they were discussing how fame poisons and corrupts a person without them ever truly realizing it. Fame pushes you to do things that you never originally intended to do. I agree with this, for example all the reality tv shows that are so popular today, the people in the show gradually progress into someone that they weren't in the beginning of the program. I believe that our human nature is revealed through everything that we do, we are always pushing to be well liked or to have popularity, wealth, beauty, knowledge, whatever a person wants in their life. With the question "What would you be willing to sell your soul for," I don't think a person could necessarily truthfully answer that question. Everyday, people are selling little pieces of their souls. We compromise with our ideals and morals, what we expect to follow. People tend to lose themselves in little pieces. Maybe you're not selling your souls outright, but you are to an extent to gain something when you compromise what you believe. As Rosie said on Oprah, she had not realized how much she had strayed from her original intentions for her show until she had finished it and looked back, astonished how much she had given up that she was primarily not willing to. It is easy to give pieces of yourself a little bit at a time. Of course, most people do not lose their entire soul because then they would be pure evil. But, we do lose some of ourselves gradually. You just need to be careful how much you lose, you don't want to end up like Dorian Gray corrupting yourself to a point that you can't return to.