Help with essay ideas

[nicholasw]

Hello,

I was assigned a compare/contrast essay on Dr. Faustus and The Picture of Dorian Gray for my English class. Since the requirements for the thesis were left pretty open-ended and both novels seem to indict hedonism as immoral, I figured this might be a good time to write a little about Objectivist ethics.

I started with this thesis:

Well before “‘adders and serpents’” (Marlowe 212) drag Dr. Faustus into the fiery abyss of hell and well before a group of servants discover Dorian Gray “lying on the floor . . . with a knife in his heart” (Wilde 170), readers of both Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus and Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray recognize a major theme in the stories: morality. Though both novels portray hedonism as immoral and ultimately detrimental to one’s physical and psychological well-being, the two authors still maintain separate notions of morality, and, as a result, offer separate rationales for the immorality of hedonism.

I was going to write about how Marlowe portrays morality as living in accordance with the will of God, and how Wilde advocates a more egoistic view of morality. Unfortunately, I think I've sort of written myself into a corner here. One issue is that I could argue that both novels advocate egoism, as being forced to suffer in hell for the rest of eternity is hardly in an individual's self-interest. Also, it's hard to even write about how the authors show certain actions as immoral, as they never have any commentary saying "this is immoral". Even though they seem to show hedonism as immoral, they seem to do this by writing about how it ultimately leads to a fate that is very undesirable for an individual concerned with his own self-interest, which makes no sense when you try to explain it in a logical argument. The only way I can see that these authors make commentary on the morality of there chracters' actions is by the ultimate fate of the individual, yet this approach really only makes sense when advocating egoism, which Dr. Faustus clearly does not.

As you can see, I'm very stuck here. Could anyone help me with this or recommend an idea for a new Objectivism-related thesis (keeping in mind it needs to be a compare and contrast essay)?

Thanks for any help!

--Nick