De Profundis

Concepts such as love and hate form the basis both for Wilde’s critique of Bosie’s character and his eventual argument positing Christ as the supreme individualist. Wilde writes that his relationship with Bosie was emotionally tumultuous, as Bosie would continuously lash out in anger. Bosie’s predisposition towards hatred potentially explains Wilde’s deliberate personification of emotions and his emphasis on the toxicity of hate. Bosie, Wilde asserts, indulged in hate far too often, ultimately corrupting his very soul. Hate is easily satisfied. More importantly, it renders one blind to the “real and ideal relations” of others.

Wilde uses this definition of love—the ability to understand the “real and ideal”—relations of another, into an ongoing motif. For instance, Wilde writes, “But Hate blinded you. The faculty ‘by which, and by which alone, we can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations’ was dead to you” (20). Later on, Wilde again repeats the definition when he states, “The faculty ‘by which, and by which alone, one can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations,’ your narrow egotism blunted, and long disuse had made of no avail” (24). Here he argues that hate and egotism slowly destroy love. This definition of love is not only a very formulated motif that presents love as the most important human faculty, but also allows for Wilde to venture into the nature of Christ.

Christ is the paragon of love, being able to share in the experience of another as if it were his own. Further, he shares such experiences with those whom society has rejected, such as the lepers or tax collectors. Wilde argues that Christ is capable of such love because his imagination is cultivated and strong. He states that it is out of his own imagination that Christ made himself incarnate. Wilde writes, “The fact that God loves man shows that in the divine order of ideal things it is written that eternal love is to be given to what is eternally unworthy” (38). The ideal for Wilde seems to represent a perfect world that only the imagination can grasp. In other words, it is the ability to look past the unworthiness of another and see in them infinite potential, as God does. Christ’s love therefore demonstrates to us how the experience of a singular individual encompasses the experience of all humanity. This conclusion may explain why Wilde still has hope for Bosie to become an ethical and kind man. Wilde pushes himself to see the ideal in Boise despite his abuse.