That is to say, there is an adoption of the “master’s tools” whereby an individual who is the object of the gaze naturally becomes the gazer of another person. The main character of the poem, so to speak, is one of the prisoners who killed his wife and peculiarly has a “wistful eye” meaning although he is aware of the inevitability of death, his perception allows him to be less fearful this is particularly unnerving for the narrator as he is someone who is very focused on the visual and cannot comprehend how in the panopticon, one could ever escape the adoption of the fixated eye that is cast on them. Oscar Wilde’s lengthy poem, “Ballad of Reading Gaol”, is highly concerned with visuality in relation to being an inmate.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |