Defining Prison

While reading Wilde’s account of prison I could not help but think of Catherine in Withering Heights. I made the connection based on each persons head-space and how they felt about their surroundings. Catherine was a free women technically in the eyes of the law, but once she married Linton she was doomed to live forever in a marriage that reminds me of the prison Wilde describes. For women of that time marriage was a type of prison. They often did not get a large selection of suitable men to marry and one they were legally married the rights of the women were hard to come by. Even if she got out of a bad or unhappy marriage inevitable social and finical consequences existed that lasted a lifetime. the reader sees this in Withering heights where this prison of marriage eventually kills Catherine. Each account is filled with despair and a calling for a different life and circumstance, for example, in Wilde’s account in “De Profundis” he says, “Out of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and scorn; anguish that wept aloud; misery that could find no voice; sorrow that was dumb. I have passed through every possible mood of suffering.” when reading those lines i can picture Catherine looking out the widow of her home wishing for her beloved and the life she could have outside the prison she inhabits.

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