Oscar Wilde: a Victim of Hatred

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is one of the most remarkable British writers ever and was also the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray, a work that by itself would have granted him a ticket to posterity. He was one of the most representattive personalities of the society of his time, what people used to call a dandy. He was elegant in his clothes and his words. His sayings reveal a keen and brilliant personality. "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much" was one of the many clever statements that have lost neither relevance nor brilliance after all these years. Several plays, short stories and poems are also part of a great literary production that Wilde left to posterity. But perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of his life is precisely the series of sad events that led to his early death at age 46. Though he was married, apparently he also had homosexual inclinations that eventually were cause of accusation by the father of one of his friends. The charge was "gross indencency" which in the time of Victorian England was indeed a dire accusation. His antagonist was a millionaire man that hated Wilde for being his son's friend and did not stop until Wilde was sent to prison where he spent two years. After that he abandoned England and went to France where he would eventually die in 1900. He would never write again as he used to and he was never again the person he was before.
So there you are, one of the most important writers of England was mistreated that way because of his sexual inclination. Our society has gone a long way until the point where we are now, a moment in time when we see things happening, some of them we agree with and others we disagree with. Whatever decisions we make it would be wise to see what happened to Oscar Wilde and learn from that. We have our own picture, just like Dorian Gray and just as his ours is hidden somewhere. When the moment to confront that naked  truth arrives, what will we see?