‘Women are the main victims in poetryʼ
‘Women are the main victims in poetryʼ
Refer to at least two authors. [25 Marks]
Laura Ellen Woolridge being the victim of Charles Woolridge however she is removed from
the novel. The position of the victims is reversed making the criminals the victims.
Women the victims in Porphyriaʼs Lover and My Last Duchess.
The woman being the criminal in The Laboratory, but her victims are also women.
In Edgar Allen Poeʼs essay ‘The Philosophy of Compositionʼ he stated that the “death of a
beautiful woman is the most poetic topic in the world”. In doing this he thematically linked the
death of woman with literary art causing critics and readers alike to analyse the role of women
in crime fiction for the past centuries. In this essay I will therefore discuss to what extent women
are the victims in the selection of poetry.
The critic Lowes stated that in crime fiction the ‘victims must be present so that the role of the
criminal is not confusedʼ. In ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaolʼ Wilde subverts this crime trope by
removing the singular woman Laura Ellen Woolridge and instead focusing on the criminals
(specifically the perpetrator of her crime – Charles Woolridge) who becomes the victim due to
the conditions of the 19th century prison. Wilde originally refers to her through the valueless
noun of “the dead” which dehumanises her and objectifies her into a simple object which spurs
the action of the poem which is Woolridgeʼs arrest. It is clear that Laura is a victim, yet her
position as the victim is glossed over through the simple line describing her as the “poor dead
woman whom he loved and murdered in her bed”, romanticising her death akin to Poeʼs
statement. She is thematically linked also to Desdemona who was also murdered in her bed
chamber by her lover Othello. Through this Wilde depicts a fantasy of what Laura Ellenʼs murder
truly was, which was in actuality done on a street corner with a razor blade due to Woolridgeʼs
fit of uncontrollable jealousy. In doing so although it is clear that the woman in the poem is a
victim her position becomes negated as the poem progresses and she is never mentioned
again. Her mention as the “dead woman” is additionally only a singular occurrence arguably
preventing her from ever becoming the ‘main victimʼ. This enables Wilde to depict the injustice
of justice by focusing on the male prisoners of Reading Gaol presenting them as the main
victims in his poem.
In 1993, Seamus Heaney stated that in doing this Wilde becomes a “propagandist poet” where
the poem becomes polemic on the justice system of his time. This can be seen through the
long-drawn-out descriptions of the prisoners suffering such as how they are forced into horrific
laborious punishments; “we tore the tarry rope into shred with blunt and bleeding nails; we
rubbed the doors and scrubbed the floors and cleaned the shining rails”. The repeated ‘ailʼ
which sound so similar to the homophone ‘wailʼ presents the prisoners suffering in a heavily
auditory onomatopoeic way which resonates with the reader. The religious allusions dispersed
‘Women are the main victims in poetryʼ
Refer to at least two authors. [25 Marks]
Laura Ellen Woolridge being the victim of Charles Woolridge however she is removed from
the novel. The position of the victims is reversed making the criminals the victims.
Women the victims in Porphyriaʼs Lover and My Last Duchess.
The woman being the criminal in The Laboratory, but her victims are also women.
In Edgar Allen Poeʼs essay ‘The Philosophy of Compositionʼ he stated that the “death of a
beautiful woman is the most poetic topic in the world”. In doing this he thematically linked the
death of woman with literary art causing critics and readers alike to analyse the role of women
in crime fiction for the past centuries. In this essay I will therefore discuss to what extent women
are the victims in the selection of poetry.
The critic Lowes stated that in crime fiction the ‘victims must be present so that the role of the
criminal is not confusedʼ. In ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaolʼ Wilde subverts this crime trope by
removing the singular woman Laura Ellen Woolridge and instead focusing on the criminals
(specifically the perpetrator of her crime – Charles Woolridge) who becomes the victim due to
the conditions of the 19th century prison. Wilde originally refers to her through the valueless
noun of “the dead” which dehumanises her and objectifies her into a simple object which spurs
the action of the poem which is Woolridgeʼs arrest. It is clear that Laura is a victim, yet her
position as the victim is glossed over through the simple line describing her as the “poor dead
woman whom he loved and murdered in her bed”, romanticising her death akin to Poeʼs
statement. She is thematically linked also to Desdemona who was also murdered in her bed
chamber by her lover Othello. Through this Wilde depicts a fantasy of what Laura Ellenʼs murder
truly was, which was in actuality done on a street corner with a razor blade due to Woolridgeʼs
fit of uncontrollable jealousy. In doing so although it is clear that the woman in the poem is a
victim her position becomes negated as the poem progresses and she is never mentioned
again. Her mention as the “dead woman” is additionally only a singular occurrence arguably
preventing her from ever becoming the ‘main victimʼ. This enables Wilde to depict the injustice
of justice by focusing on the male prisoners of Reading Gaol presenting them as the main
victims in his poem.
In 1993, Seamus Heaney stated that in doing this Wilde becomes a “propagandist poet” where
the poem becomes polemic on the justice system of his time. This can be seen through the
long-drawn-out descriptions of the prisoners suffering such as how they are forced into horrific
laborious punishments; “we tore the tarry rope into shred with blunt and bleeding nails; we
rubbed the doors and scrubbed the floors and cleaned the shining rails”. The repeated ‘ailʼ
which sound so similar to the homophone ‘wailʼ presents the prisoners suffering in a heavily
auditory onomatopoeic way which resonates with the reader. The religious allusions dispersed
