In ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol,’ Wilde engages with themes of loss, imprisonment, and emotional turbulence. The poem concludes with Wilde restating his original refrain regarding the fact that all men “kill the thing they love,” in one way or another. It also speaks on Wilde’s general ideas about the justice system and that one must come to God to find happiness. The rest of the poem describes the funeral of Wooldridge and how his body was covered in lime. They are haunted by phantoms that seem to be very much alive. In the third section Wilde describes the daily activities of the prisoners and the way they spend their nights. Wilde spends time describing how the monotony of jail is only broken by the terror of it. He meets his death bravely while the other men cower from even the idea. In the second section Wooldridge is hanged. Wilde, and the other men, are jealous of his attitude as he has accepted his fate and is the better for it. The man has been sentenced to hang and goes about his life in prison wistfully.
The poem begins with the story of Charles Thomas Wooldridge who murdered his wife. “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” by Oscar Wilde tells of Wilde’s experiences in prison and his observations of another prisoner condemned to die.
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