we all have a little devil inside us poem

For example, the transition between lines one and two of the second stanza of part I and lines one and two of stanza three in part III.Īlliteration is another type of repetition. It helps the poem maintain its sing-song-like feeling.Įnjambment is a common literary device used by poets when they cut off a line before its natural stopping point. It can be seen in Wilde’s broad repeittion of lines like “For each man kills the thing he loves.” A numberof the stanzas in this poem are identical or close to identical due to this literary device. The latter is one of the most important in the poem. Wilde makes use of several literary devices in ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol.’ These include but are not limited to alliteration, enjambment, and repetition. The poem feels quite consistent and regular due to this fact, as well as the numerous instances of repetition that Wilde makes use of. The sections all maintain the same rhyme scheme of ABCBDB. ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ by Oscar Wilde is a 109 stanza poem separated into six sections. After the murder he begged the officers to arrest him and mourned his action until his death. During an argument they tumbled onto the street, and he slit her throat with a knife.

The poem begins with a discussion of Charles Thomas Wooldridge who was condemned to die in 1896 for murdering his wife in a jealous rage. He focuses, through repetition, on how men inevitably destroy that which they love. Wilde was separate from everything and everyone he loved during this dark period of his life and those emotions come through in the text. The poet works from his own experiences in Reading Gaol, and those of men he met or knew about, to craft this poem about the sorrows of life, love, and solitude. 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.

We all have a little devil inside us poem