Oscar Wilde, Public Shaming, And Transfiguration

He himself stopped worrying whether the law that produced the charge against him was right or wrong, as that worrying did nothing for him.

Photo by Daniella k on Unsplash

“I learned many things in prison that were terrible to learn, but I learnt some good lessons that I needed.”

Oscar Wilde wrote the above quote to his friend Carlos Blacker, who escaped England for France in 1890 after being falsely accused of being a card cheat. Wilde himself, the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, was accused and imprisoned for “acts of gross indecency,” essentially for having homosexual relationships with multiple men.

Blacker and Wilde were two men who are described by Helen Andrews of First Things as “history’s martyrs to shame,” as both British men were publicly smeared and accused of crimes and had their reputations ruined, and were subsequently exiled from their homes. The charges against Oscar Wilde were true while the charges against Blacker were false, but it did not make any difference in the two men’s experiences in public shaming and condemnation.

Fittingly, in a lesser-known historical fact, in 1898, Wilde and Blacker provided critical information in exposing the French military officer who…