Sin in Dubus

A major theme in all of Dubus’ short stories is sin and its consequences. Each main character of each story has to deal with a unique set of emotional and psychological consequences, though many are paralleled throughout Dubus’ works. Being our first Dubus story, The Intruder did not elaborate much on the consequences of Kenneth’s actions. However, in this short story, Dubus shows us a way how people escape their guilt from sin, which he does in almost all his stories. In If They Knew Yvonne, Dubus shows us a quick but painful escape from sin, with Harry lying in bed with a knife, but then tells us that escaping your guilt and sin is not the way to move past it. You must deal with it head on, instead of cowarding in Fantasyland or completely stopping your temptations.
Back to the topic of consequences of sin, Dubus fills the pages with it. In Killings, the sin of coveting another man’s wife leads to the sin of murder, which leads to another sin of murder, which is magnified by an omissive sin from the Mrs. The consequences of all this sin is two men dead and the lasting heartache it will cause Mr. and Mrs. Fowler.
In Rose, Dubus again stuffs his pages with sin. This time however, his main goal is to highlight the difference between omissive and active sin. For an example displaying omissive sin, had Dubus used an example like Rose seeing Jim stealing from work and her not saying anything about it, he would not have made his point. He needed to show an example of omissive sin that could rival the sin of beating your kids, so that the reader asks the question: Which sin is worse?
He does this well, as you see that the omissive sin carries with it as much consequence as the active sin. The consequence of Rose’s omissive sin is her guilt, and also Jim throwing her kid, but mostly her guilt. This guilt drives her to commit another sin, which as Dubus shows us with the ending, is actually the worse sin. Dubus shows us this in the ending with Rose being completely baren of self-confidence, hope, or life, and why? Because of her active sin, not her omissive sin. Had she dealt with her guilt and anger in a reasonable manner, she would still have her kids. But she doesn’t, she chooses the path of wrath, and Dubus tells us decisevelly, you do not overcome or move past sin by committing more sin.