Introduction to Oscar Project

A Fan of Wilde

My love affair with Oscar Wilde began many, many years ago. When in my final year at school I won the senior award for Modern History, the book I chose as my prize was neither modern nor historical. It was a beautiful hardcover edition of Wilde’s complete works. I confess that even after all this time, I have not read close to half of his artistic output, but I have loved so much of it. No matter how many times I read it aloud to my son as a bedtime story, The Happy Prince always reduced me to tears. Wilde’s fairy tales represented something surprisingly moral – even spiritual – and so different to the droll witticisms for which he remains famous. The Picture of Dorian Gray explores a world in which for some the external is all that is important; it hints at the childlike belief that what we do leaves its marks on our faces, and invites us to ponder what we would do if we could get away with it. I found delight in it all, plays, poems and stories. That battered hardcover, with its now sepia-orange pages, has pride of place in my library. But there are gaps – huge and embarrassing gaps – in my knowledge of even some of Oscar Wilde’s more famous pieces. My TBR pile is as long as most people’s, I suppose. I am fortunate, however, that I have time to work my way through many of the texts that I feel I should have read. One tiny text that I was able to cross off said list in 2024 was Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol. Huzzah!

I must confess, however, that I was left with a bitter taste and a great deal to think about. Oscar, my friend, we need to talk.

A Little Background

Early in 1895, Oscar Wilde sued John Sholto Douglas, the 9^th Marquess of Queensberry, for criminal libel because Queensberry had written ‘posing as a somdomite [sic]’ on a card left in an arguably public place for Wilde. The court found that the claim that Wilde was posing as a sodomite was “true in substance and in fact” so Queensberry was acquitted, and Wilde was bankrupted by the case and promptly arrested for “gross indecency” in April 1895. Although the first trial ended with a hung jury, in May of 1895 Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. 

Wilde served in a series of prisons and in November 1895 he was transferred to Reading Gaol. Instead of being referred to by his name in this prison, he was referred to as C.3.3., which stood for cell block 3, landing 3, cell 3. 

The Ballad of Reading Gaol was initially published in 1898 under the name of C.3.3. and sold well. Wilde’s authorship was soon revealed, and he was able to survive off the proceeds until his death in November 1900. 

This poem is written in ballad form; it has been suggested Wilde thought this form appropriate for the lower ‘criminal’ classes, who were his intended readers. It is made up of 109 sestets (six-line stanzas), which are divided into six untitled sections of between three and 37 stanzas. Each sestet is made up of alternating iambic tetrameters and iambic trimeters, thus following an eight-six-eight-six-eight-six syllable pattern. The rhyming scheme is ABCBDB. 

Dedicated to C.T.W., The Ballad of Reading Gaol focuses on the imprisonment, sentencing, execution and burial of a man who murdered his wife. Charles Thomas Wooldridge was hanged at Reading Gaol on 7^th July 1896. The ballad shifts from specific descriptions of Wooldridge’s experiences to general reflections on the harsh conditions of prisons and the cruel inhumanity of the British justice system. 

The Bitter Taste

It is unsurprising that Oscar Wilde is sympathetic in his ballad to the lot of a prisoner. What is extraordinary about The Ballad of Reading Gaol is the poet’s total lack of sympathy for the dead victim of C.T.W’s violent crime. Unnamed, she is chillingly dismissed as “the thing he loved” which apparently “each man” is predisposed to try to destroy. I kept returning to the poem, searching for clues which suggested that Wilde felt empathy for Laura Ellen Glendell, who was known as Nell and aged only 23 at the time of her murder. But no. If empathy is too much to ask, dear Oscar, how about understanding?  Even recognition would have eased my ire. But still no. Nell Glendell is invisible and silent in this ballad. Her murderer, who after a violent physical assault, dragged her into the street and slit her throat with the razor he had taken with him for that premeditated purpose – that man is presented to the reader as a victim, who is both stoic and wistful. The poet laments the mere three weeks the poor creature is given to prepare for his death, and is confident that, once dead, the man will find peace; he is, after all, “one of those whom Christ came down to save”. Really, Oscar?! Surely we can be fiercely critical of a penal system without putting halos on violent men.

Are Modern Sensibilities Fair?

Is it unfair to judge the poet using modern mores? Oscar Wilde is still performed in our society: his plays are on stages and in films, his works are taught in classrooms, and biographies of him are still being written. As such, his writing plays a role in modern society and contributes to our modern discourse. If this writing gives comfort to murderers, the assumptions in the texts need confronting; and if domestic violence is a problem in a society (as it is in our own), then the imperative is even greater. No texts should be on such high pedestals that their ideologies must not be challenged. 

Context

Our society is one where celebrities rush to embrace the #MeToo movement on social media, and activists affirm the need to ‘believe her’ when female voices are heard to complain of violence and violation. Yet we seem hesitant to make changes to societal structures which might help alleviate the scourge of male violence towards women. Acknowledging the prevalence of violence against women with a hashtag and checking society’s knee-jerk tendency to silence, dismiss or denigrate victim’s voices are both steps in a positive direction, but these steps are so small, so slow and so shallow, and so often each step results in a significant backlash. If feminist voices sound shrill to our ears, perhaps this is why – fighting the same battles over and over is exhausting, but absolutely necessary when 50% of the population are at risk. As Saoirse Ronan pointed out, “That’s what girls have to think about all the time. Am I right, ladies?”

As a preface to a re-examination of Oscar Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol, let us get a sense of the size of the problem of violence against women.

Some Statistics – sexual assault 

• According to the Centre Against Sexual Assault (CASA house), 20% of women and 6.25% of men have experienced sexual assault since turning 15 years old (ABS 2023). 
• The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) estimates that from July 2021 to June 2022, 25% of women and 7% of men had experienced violence from an intimate partner since turning 15 years old. 
• The AIHW also determined that in 2022-23, 90% of hospitalisation for assault injury by a partner were for females.
• The Queensland Department of Families, Seniors, Disability Services and Child Safety (Dept FSDS &CS) reported that in 2022 86% of sexual assault victims were female, and that 30% of sexual assault occurred in the context of domestic/family violence.
• CASA house estimated that 97% of sexual violence in perpetrated by men (based on AIHW 2020 figures).
• The Australian Bureau of Statistics noted that from July 2023 to June 2024, 79% of family and domestic violence offenders were male.
• According to CASA house, in 2022, 88 sexual assaults were recorded by NSW police each day (based on ABS 2023 figures). In 2022 the population of NSW was just under 8.2 million, therefore approximately 31% of the Australian population.

Summary: sexual assaults happen; one third happen in the context of family violence; between 79% and 97% of this violence is perpetrated by males.

Some Statistics – issues related to reporting sexual assault

• The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BCSR) reported on data from 2018 for NSW and found that 85% of reported sexual assaults resulted in no further action from police, meaning no criminal charges were laid. 7% of reported sexual assaults were proven in court. 5% of reported sexual assaults resulted in a custodial sentence for the perpetrators. As Jackie Fitzgerald, Executive Director of NSW BCSR, noted “by far, the most significant point of attrition is at the police investigation phase”.

There is however a good deal of evidence to suggest that there is another, earlier, ‘significant point of attrition’ when it comes to alleged victims reporting to authorities alleged sexual crimes committed against them.

• The AIHW reported in 2020 that 87% of female victim survivors of sexual assault in Australia did not contact police.
• The Queensland Dept FSDS &CS reported on the 14^th of April 2025 that 92% of women who experienced sexual assault did not report it to police.
• An Australian Law Reform Commission report (ALRC Report 114) noted that “In 2007, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) estimated that less than 30% of sexual assaults and related offences are reported to police [24:15].
• The National community attitudes to violence against women (NCAS) survey of 2021 found that 34% of respondents believe it is common for sexual assault allegations to be used as a way of “getting back at men”.

Summary: between 70% and 87% of sexual assaults are not reported to authorities; most sexual assaults that are reported to authorities result in no punishment for the alleged offender; over a third of Australians think men are accused of rape unfairly.

Some Research – rape in marriage

Sexual assault in the context of marital or domestic partnerships adds a layer of complexity to the issue of sexual assault. 

• The oft-quoted judge and jurist, Sir Matthew Hale pronounced in 1736 “a husband cannot be guilty of rape upon his wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind to her husband which she cannot retract”.
• According to an article published in the Australian Women’s History Network by Lisa Featherstone “it was – within this framework – legally impossible to rape one’s own wife, in both British and Australian jurisdictions”.
• For some time husbands were considered legally entitled to sex from their wives – and thus exempt from any legal repercussions for raping them – “even after divorce proceedings had begun, but not after a decree nisi had been granted” (Lisa Featherstone, AWHN).
• Starting in South Australia in 1976 and ending finally in 1994 in the Northern Territory, marital rape was criminalised in all states and territories in Australia.

Summary: rape was legal in marriage in parts of Australia up until 1994.

Some Statistics – domestic violence deaths

• According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, on average in 2022-23, intimate partners killed one woman every 11 days and one man every 91 days.
• Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women Australia project (2025), literally counts the deaths by violence of Australian women; by 22^nd of April 2025 the count was 14 female victims of violence. As this was the 112^th day of the year, this means a victim every 8 days in Australia so far.
• The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (ODC) report estimated that although 81% of worldwide homicide victims were male, 82% of intimate partner homicide victims were female.
• The U.N. ODC estimates that 60% of females killed intentionally worldwide in 2023 were killed by an intimate partner or family member.

Summary: males are far more likely to be victims of homicide however most female victims are murdered by present or former husbands, boyfriends or partners, or fathers, brothers, uncles or cousins.

One Summary to Summarise Them All

Just in case you got a little lost in those numbers and organisations and dates, let’s bring all those summaries together:

Sexual assaults happen; one third happen in the context of family violence; between 79% and 97% of this violence is perpetrated by males. 

Between 70% and 87% of sexual assaults are not reported to authorities; most sexual assaults that arereported to authorities result in no punishment for the alleged offender; over a third of Australians think men are accused of rape unfairly.

Rape was legal in marriage in parts of Australia up until 1994.

Males are far more likely to be victims of homicide however most female victims are murdered by present or former husbands, boyfriends or partners, or fathers, brothers, uncles or cousins.

The Catalyst of this project…

In the words generally attributed to Margaret Atwood, “men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Am I right, ladies? 

The issues that Oscar Wilde ignores in The Ballad of Reading Gaol are significant. They were in 1896 when Charles Wooldridge murdered Nell Glendell, and they remain so now. Today, 79% of the world’s population live in countries where homosexuality is not criminalised, and thus perhaps Oscar would have been saved from imprisonment if he had lived today. In 2017 he was posthumously pardoned by the British legal system. In this same, modern, more open-minded world, issues around females becoming victims of male violence are difficult to raise and even more challenging to combat. Although crime rates, including that of homicide, continue to fall, the portion of violence that victimises females is predominantly found in the homes, in the bedrooms, in the kitchens, in the families of these women and girls.

The shrill cry of “Not all men!” is often effective in silencing the cries of victims of male violence, as if a percentage of non-offending males negates the pain and suffering caused by the others. Keeping in mind that at least 70% of sexual assaults are never reported to police and of those remaining only 5% will lead to a custodial sentence for the perpetrator, it is beyond extraordinary that the fear of false accusations of rape from ‘scorned and vindictive women’ runs so deep that nearly 35% of Australians believe men will be accused falsely  as a way of “getting back” at them. I have yet to hear “Not all women!” used to silence these hysterical claims…but I live in hope.

It is from this perspective that the ideologies evident in Oscar Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol are problematic. The poem makes a victim out of a murderously jealous husband, and the bashed and brutalised dead woman is merely an inconvenient thing that causes his downfall. This, Oscar, is why I have to respond to your ballad.