In reading Oscar Wilde’s letter “De Profundis,” I noticed some striking similarities to the poem “In Memoriam” by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Both works talk of suffering, and Wilde mentions the death of his mother, paralleling Tennyson’s entire poem being about the death of a friend. Wilde states in his letter that “Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.” I understand this to mean that sorrow is in some ways a pact with God, something to be experienced in holy repose, but also has the potential to bring good. After all, we would not have “De Profundis” if Wilde had not befallen upon poor circumstances and if life had not played out in such a way to make him experience so much sorrow. The same could be said of Tennyson, who often meditates on faith and the afterlife in his poem.

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.

Throughout the course of the semester, we have read numerous novels that depict love as something that is both fleeting and dangerous. We see this in Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Tennyson’s In Memoriam, and Dickens’ Great Expectations, and here I find myself stumbling across it again in Oscar Wilde’s poem, “The Ballad of Reading Goal.” Primarily because of the stanzas:  “Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! …. Some love too little, some love too long” (1.37-1.42, 1.49). 
After reading this stanza, I immediately thought of Catherine Earnshaw because at various points in the novel, Catherine seeks to murder the thing she loves most in the world, Heathcliff.  It’s also interesting to note that time after time, Heathcliff refers to Catherine as his murderer, and the idea of killing “with a kiss” is apparent in their reunion in Chapter 15. Specifically when Nelly contends that Catherine “had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face!  The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there—she was fated, sure to die” (CHPXV). Catherine’s death inevitably leads to Heathcliff’s demise, to which he asks her: “‘Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours!  How can I?’ (CHP XV). Heathcliff’s plea to be kissed and to hide from her gaze speaks to the lines in Wildes’ poem: “Some do it with a bitter look/ The coward does with a kiss.” 
I also found Wilde’s line: “Some love too little, some love too long” reminiscent of the romantic obsession between Heathcliff and Catherine, in which Catherine escapes the grasps of Heathcliff’s love through death, and Heathcliff is still left pining over his murderer 18 years after her death. 

In De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde offers commentary on his time in prison. While both are significant, I am more interested in the latter. The Ballad of Reading Gaol describes events that Wilde experienced, particularly the hanging of a fellow inmate, but more importantly, it presents a call for reform of the penal and prison systems of the era. Not only was the legal system incredibly flawed, but the prisons were inhumanely brutal. Health concerns were countless, work was destructive, and guards seemingly took pleasure in punishing inmates for the smallest of infractions. Wilde himself was sentenced to two years hard labor for “gross indecency.” Reading Gaol appears to comment on the reformative hypocrisy of prison, that it ravishes the minds, bodies, and souls of the very individuals it seeks to reform. More generally, Wilde also focuses on the depressing and hopeless conditions. The poem effectively communicates the perpetual terror and dread the prisoners feel as a result of their environment. Finally, the piece can be read, among many other things, as a criticism of the death penalty, thus rounding out Wilde’s cry for change.

I could not help but be reminded of Great Expectations‘ Newgate Prison while reading both of Wilde’s pieces. I feel that they give important context in understanding the conditions, and make Pip’s visit to Newgate that much more effective. Of course, Pip critically comments on what he observes himself, but Reading Gaol allows us to perhaps better understand Magwitch’s character and his desperation to escape the prison. This is because Wilde’s pieces have the “benefit” of being told by someone who experienced these very hardships. The similarities in Wilde’s and Dickens’ work and criticisms of the prison systems should come as no surprise, as Dickens was a prominent social reformation activist of the Victorian era. While the theme is much less pronounced in Great Expectations, both it and Wilde’s De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol serve as important criticisms of the penal system of the 19th century.

In both Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, the reader is presented with a reflective, and, at least partially, regretful narrator. Though Pip represents a fictional narrator and Wilde is relaying events that presumably actually happened in his life, a similar feeling is gleaned from engaging with both works. Indeed, though Pip’s life story is told linearly, from the time he first realized where he fit into the world to the moment he is reunited with Estella, it is told as a recollection of the past and is therefore laden with intermittent and personal reflection. On the other hand, Wilde’s De Profundis lacks this seemingly linear structure and instead is completely based on reflection as the entire piece centers around Wilde’s coming to terms with his imprisonment and realization of his past misdeeds.

Pip and Wilde seem to have committed similar misdeeds. They both lived hedonistic and materialistic lifestyles. Pip is enormously in debt by the time he uncovers the truth about his expectations where said debt was accrued by his participation in superfluous clubs and activities, such as the Finches of the Grove. In a similar way, Wilde devoted his life to satiating his each and every fancy. However, as Wilde learns during his time in prison, his desire was a “malady” that led him further from himself.

Furthermore, it is only through reflection that Pip and Wilde are able to recover themselves and follow the path of self-realization. Pip reflects upon the way in which he treated his loved ones, Joe and Biddy, and how he should have cared for them instead of for wealth and high society, entities that only ended up bringing him misery. As a result of this reflection, Pip is presumed to finally be satisfied and at ease with himself and seems to be content with his situation in life. Similarly, Wilde realizes that pleasure is fleeting and finds solace in sorrow, deeming it to be the most human and also the most eternal sensation. This act of reflection allows Wilde to be comforted in the knowledge that his time in prison, though painful, has not been in vain and that he will be the stronger for having undergone this experience and made the aforementioned realization regarding sorrow.

While reading Oscar Wilde, De Profundis. One quote really stuck out to me. “Morality does not help me. I am a born antinomian. I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws. But while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes. It is well to have learned that.” I made a connection to Great Expectations. I think the theme of morality is one that we can draw connections on through many pieces of this course. Specifically here, Pips struggle with morality, with who he becomes, how he treats other people is one reflective in the quote pulled from the reading for today. Pips development as a character is one where he loses certain aspects of his morality along the way. This is seen as his focus is narrowed in one what he wants even if that meant disregard for others. Overall, morality is a theme we can track throughout this course with many readings. We see how certain aspects of morality are either followed, or disparaged, and it is interesting to see the different values, expectations and further the effects of them.

In both of today’s readings shame is shown to be a result of the Victorian criminal justice system. In particular, “Ballad of Reading Gaol” reflects the huge role of shame in crime and punishment during this time period. The prison is said to be “built with bricks of shame,” the noose is described as “the rope of shame,” and the grave is the “pit of shame.” The poem describes the shameful way criminals are buried. The people are “eaten by teeth of flame” and then put in nameless graves. The poem reflects the inner turmoil of these prisoners in the lines, “And down the iron stair we tramped, Each from his separate Hell.” This poem makes it clear that Victorian society can be very toxic. Specifically, the justice system cripples people with shame leaving them unable to grow as people. Wilde writes, “and by all forgot, we rot and rot, with soul and body marred.” Shame is also a recurring theme in Great Expectations. We see Pip feel ashamed many times throughout the novel. Estella makes Pip feel shameful of his upbringing and social status by criticizing his rough hands and unrefined manners. This haunts Pip causing him to obsessively think about improving his social status. Pip also grapples with feeling ashamed of Joe. For example, when Joe visits Pip in London, Pip dreads Joes arrival and mentions that he is relieved that he won’t be meeting Drummel. Pip even feels ashamed when he thinks he will be killed by Orlick; he worries that his friends will think that he ditched them for his own sake. This shame keeps Pip stagnant; he is held back from developing as a person. For example, when he realizes that he must not feel shame for Joe by the end of the novel, Pip is set free, now able to evolve into a better person. It is well-known that Dickens did not approve of many aspects of Victorian society, including it’s brutal criminal justice system. “Ballad of Reading Gaol” depicts the justice system in a way that sheds light on the tendency of Victorian society to demonize, humiliate and degrade its citizens. Dickens uses shame in Great Expectations to reflect the harmful effects that society can have on its people. While society does this institutionally through the criminal justice system you see guilt and shame seep into daily life in these examples of Pip’s shame in Great Expectations. Whether in prison or not, people become stuck by their shame.

From what I’ve gathered in both the texts, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and De Profundis by Oscar Wilde, is that the speaker is being kept inside of jail cell. However, I believe that this ‘jail cell’ is a metaphor for the entrapment of depression. When one is in this state, they detach themselves, becoming someone they aren’t. In the poem, when it repeats that ‘the man killed his love’, I believe that this is a representation of who ‘he’ is and all ‘he’ has lost; his desires, his dreams, his fortune. Although this can be read literal, I choose to see my interpretation as the correct path as it relates to any reader who reads these texts. When looking back at our semester’s catalog of texts, I think back to every text we have read, as it gives off this dark ominous theme that leaves characters and the audience feeling sorrow and gloom.