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He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellows got to swing.“
Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.
I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
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With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.
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 kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty place
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Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on 16 October .He was an Irish
writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he
became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today
he is remembered for his epigrams plays and the circumstances of his
imprisonment.
Social background connecting to the poem
On 18 February 1895 Oscar Wilde initiated a private prosecution against
Queensberry, who was arrested on a charge of criminal libel: Queensberry's
note amounted to a public accusation that Wilde had committed
a felony. Wilde's association with blackmailers and male prostitutes, crossdressers and homosexual brothels was recorded. Wilde dropped the
prosecution and Queensberry was found not guilty, but the court declared
Queensbury's accusation that Wilde was "posing as a Sodomite" justified.
Wilde was arrested for "gross indecency" . Wilde was released on 19 May
1897, and though his health had suffered greatly, he had a feeling of spiritual
renewal. Wilde spent mid-1897 with Robert Ross in Berneval-le-Grand, where
he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol. By 25 November Wilde had developed
cerebral meningitis. Robbie Ross arrived on 29 November and sent for a
priest, and Wilde was conditionally baptized into the Catholic Church by Fr
Cuthbert Dunne, a Passionist priest from Dublin. He later died on 30
November 1900 from the cerebral meningitis.
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The extract of the poem starts off narrating about a man who
received a death penalty for killing his wife, and the wife is
described as “ the poor dead woman whom he loved, and was
murdered in her bed”. One of Wilde’s inmates in Jail was Charles
Thomas Wooldridge who had been a trooper in the Royal Horse
Guards. He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura
Ellen. He was only aged 30 when executed. Maybe he is the one
being talked about?
• The poem is also about how everyone has killed something they
love at some point in life and how we have different ways of doing
it. However not all of us are punished for it.
• The poem is written in 1st person perspective and Wilde's usage of
the word "I" in some of the stanzas indicates that Wilde is the
clearly defined narrator.
• The extract consists of 10 stanzas and there is a certain point were the
poem shifts from one perspective to another (evident in the stanzas).
• The first 6 stanzas only focus on the prisoner concerned .In these
stanzas Wilde shows us the effect that imprisonment has on his fellow
prisoner when he describes the prisoner as “a man who looked so
wistful at the day” and “ his step seemed light and gay”. The prisoner
is hopeful (I will explain a little on that later)and his walk conveys a
sense of pain and suffering. Wilde also gives a description of the
horrible conditions of prison and the harshness of the punishment that
is issued by the society to those who sin when he says “ the sky
above my head became like a scotching steel” .
• In the last 4 stanzas of the poem wilde takes a far wider perspective
that reflects the nature of men (all humans?) in general, who all kill
“the thing they love” but who do not all have to die and how the
society deals with such actions. It seems as if in the last 4 stanzas,
Wilde is stating that we all kill something we love however the society
evaluates our crimes by degree and those whom are found more
guilty are given a greater punishment while the rest of us continue
living in freedom. For example “ the coward does it with a kiss” (killing
love by cheating ) but does not get a life sentence in prison. Does that
make sense to u? well I hope it does.
• Love ,Pain
• Social Injustice , laws
• Redemption, Freewill
Well the list is quite long depending on how u
interpret the poem however I'm just going to
focus on just a few ideas.
(and im not going to do a line by line analysis coz I
the poem is quite long. )
• In the opening stanza, the prisoner did not kill his wife in a
street or some random parking lot but in their own bed
with shows the intimacy of the murder (maybe he killed her
out of passion?)and that is how the idea of love is first
introduced from the very stanza as Wilde states that “ each
man kills the thing he loves”. However the idea of love is
quite spread-out as its not only focusing on the romantic
love but rather talking about the things we love and that
could range from a human to a plant or even a cup.
• The idea of pain come from the suffering and hurting that a
person feels after losing something/ someone that you love
and also knowing that YOU are the one killed it. Or I could
be the pain of the punishment you receive for killing what
you love.
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One of the poem’s main themes is focused on society. this idea is rather
divided into two parts. The first focus is on the cruelty of the murderer's
crime, showing how human nature is destructive towards one another
specially the people or things we love and cherish the most. This also
shows our lack of respect for love in most of us. This can be interpreted
from the line “ yet each man kills the thing he loved” ( killing the thing u
love, that’s just straight-up cruel)
• The second focus is on the greater cruelty of the punishment our society
gives to those who have sinned. The line “ that fellow’s got to swing”
shows an awful reflection on a society that claims to uphold Christian
virtues, yet punishes some men harshly for their deeds and further
denies them even the small benefit of forgiveness. And also the line “yet
each man does not die” shows that the society weighs our crimes and
issue death penalties to those who they judge as murders (the society is
killing a man because he killed his wife. They are just doing exactly what
he did and that's killing!! So how is the law being fair?) anyway ….
• Wilde is merely pointing out that the self-righteousness of human justice
is questionable and this shows us that clearly has a low opinion of the
prison system's as well as the
society’s judgement.
• After reading the poem several times i have picked up on a
faint sense of hope from Wilde’s narration of the prisoners
mood and it got me thinking ‘what makes an imprisoned
man look up at the sky “with a wistful eye” with a step that
“seemed so light and gay”? ‘Well the first thing that came
into mind was the hope for redemption! everyone needs
redemption for something .He has committed a sin and the
society deprived him of his freewill by imprisoning him but
he hasn’t stopped hoping for redemption even when he is
on his way to his death.
• The usage of the words “blood” and “wine” in the first
stanza creates a vivid imagery that shows the brutality of
our distractive human nature (how the involvement of
alcohol mostly ends up in a bloody situation?)
• Wilde gives us a very vivid descriptive of the prison, how it
is quite dull and un-soothing (doesn’t feel anything like
home because of its lack of colour) and he mentions the sky
as a “tent” which just gives us a further image of a confined
space and freedom is out of reach.
• The image of the prison is a metaphor of the society. We
live in a society with judges, and he was condemned just
for being different from his time So, in that way, the prison
could symbolize the society which imprisoned us, most of a
society which imprisons those who do not follow the
prescripted rules.
• The tone that Wilde uses in the poem is one of
sympathy (at first) when he writes about the
prisoner but it later changes into one of
disappointment? despise? (well I have forgotten
the word I wanted so I'm not quite sure on what
to say) but the tone definitely changes as the
poem progresses as his view turns to the laws and
as he looks down on society judgement
• Well I don’t have much time to write more stuff
but I hope this helps you with the poem.
By Panashe