C33

Dying from bronchitis, she said she missed her son who was in jail. She turned around to face the wall when told the prison authority did not give him the permission to leave. Her son was Oscar Wilde who wrote “The Importance of Being Earnest,” the second most read and performed drama after Shakespeare’s works.

Jane “Speranza” Wilde was a talented woman. She was a poet, translator, linguist, Irish nationalist and feminist. Everyone in Ireland knew her. Inheriting her talent, Oscar Wilde enjoyed great success as a writer after graduating from Trinity College in Dublin and the University of Oxford. However, when his fame reached a peak, the homosexual scandal broke out, which took everything away from him. In May 1895, he was sentenced to two years of forced labor and was given a new name “C33” – a prisoner in room 3 on the third floor in building C.

However, his mother never turned her back on him. She told him to fight without shame in the court even when the world threw stones and spat at him. Family reputation was never more important for her than her son. The most heart-wrenching part of “De Profundis,” a compilation of the letters Oscar Wilde wrote during his imprisonment, is where he referred to his mother’s death. It is only one paragraph, but it is not because of the lack of sorrow, regret and pain. It was actually the opposite. Even for the lord of language, such emotions were “not for pen to write or paper to record.”

He was released in May 1897, a year after his mother passed away. However, he was never free from the sorrow until he died miserably after three years and a half at the age of 46. His words in “De Profundis” attest to it even now after 100 years. The one paragraph was the only thing he could do for his deceased mother.