De Profundis

“De Profundis” is far more than a love letter to an estranged partner. Rather, Wilde critiques society and the political system of his time. In a manner that seems to honor Socrates and his trial at Athens, as depicted in The Apology and The Crito, Wilde personifies society and questions the validity of its laws. In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates debates the morality of laws, as he has been sentenced to death for corrupting the youth and worshiping false gods. He ponders whether it is ethical to evade punishment and if one still has an obligation to honor a law even if it is unjust. Socrates depicts society as humanity’s parent, having raised, shaped, and influenced each individual. As such, Socrates concludes that to evade his sentence is to go against the very society that raised him, and of which he has been a willing participant since his birth.

Wilde exposes a flaw in Socrates’s conclusion, stating that while society has the right to punish its citizens, it possesses the supreme vice of shallowness. Prison unjustly condemns the individual to a life of shame and profiling, even as society fails to acknowledge its hand in the pain and suffering it has enacted.