The Harlot's House Analysis

In the poem “The Harlot’s House,” by Oscar Wilde, essentially the speaker is walking around town at night with his Love and he  happens upon a harlot’s house where is almost entranced by what he sees; the harlot’s dancing, laughing, and attempting to sing with their “guests.” His own Love leaves his side and enters the whore-house. There is a change in the mood of the scene as his Love leaves him and the dawn creeps down the same street. The poem draws huge contrasts between two different ways of life, or relationships, and this is emphasized by the inclusion of night and day which usually have connotations that are associated to the morality of the two different ways of feeling for people.  Each “character” in the poem can be read on several levels. For example, the harlots’ guests and the speaker’s Love could represent actual people or the emotional-psychological complex that arises from the existence of harlots and the men who promote their business.

                Of course these are not blind assumptions. These claims come from the text itself. More specifically from the lines:

Like wire-pulled automatons,

Slim silhouetted skeletons

Went sidling through the slow quadrille.

They took each other by the hand,

And danced a stately saraband;

Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed

A phantom lover to her breast,

Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette

Came out, and smoked its cigarette

Upon the steps like   a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said,

"The dead are dancing with the dead,

The dust is whirling with the dust."

But she--she heard the violin,

And left my side, and entered in:

Love passed into the house of lust.

Literally read, this section of the poem can be about an experience the speaker had one night while walking with his love. The speaker explains that he and his Love happen upon a harlot’s house. He hears music from within. Against the shades he sees the harlots and their dance partners dancing, as seen in the lines “Like wire-pulled automatons, / Slim silhouetted skeletons/ Went sidling through the slow quadrille…” “Automatons” appears to be how the speaker views harlots. “Slim silhouetted skeletons” is how he views the men who are enjoying themselves there. It is obvious that the speaker disapproves of these "phantoms" and “puppets” as e continually dehumanizes them. His attitude displays his thoughts to be highly condescending.  The speaker verifies this when he turns to his Love and says “the dead are dancing with the dead.” Even though the speaker tries to discount the brothel, his Love enters anyway and is no more what he, the speaker, thought his love was.

                Beyond a primary understanding of the poem lay deeper meaning that are a bit stronger and resonate more with today’s societal vices. One of these deeper meanings could be that the author represents the differences between out emotional or psychological states regarding love, life, and relationships through each character in and around the brothel scene. All throughout the poem, the harlots are called automatons, clockwork puppets, or mechanical. This can easily be understood as a representation of the harlots’ emotional condition. They are robotic. “Escorting” “gentlemen” is their trade, their job. Being used for another man’s physical gratification cannot be a highly desirable profession. In fact, it cannot be desirable at all, even though it is easy money. Money is exactly why these women degrade themselves and their dignity by selling their “wares.” For some women, prostitution becomes a monetary necessity. So, when they are copulating or what have you, it is hard to imagine that they feel anything for their “employers.” If they feel anything at all, it is probably a heavier purse. The men are called even worse. The speaker repeatedly calls them ghostly, phantoms, not live. How could they be alive? They are devoid of a living human’s morals or compassion. Men like this subject women like the harlots to where they are in life- in the gutter with the rats and roaches of society. By promoting such an unhealthy business, they cannot be truly human- perhaps selfish or a little sociopathic in their not caring or how those women are treated. There is no love in a brothel, only lust. The speaker says this to his Love and still his Love leaves him and enters into Lust. This can represent how lust is often masked by love at first but it is always unmasked sooner or later.

                This poem, section of the poem, if read on another in depth level takes a stand on prostitution itself versus the way you and I live (assuming we are not prostitutes). The author calls the prostitutes all but robotic many times. This is how he is trying to say that prostitution is robotic, or unfeeling. From the outside looking in, those women seem to be functional people but they are empty inside. Prostitution is not a very good lifestyle. The author calls the male participants dead, ghostly, and phantoms. This alludes to the type of men who support this practice. They too are not among the rest of normal society. They cannot partake in a normal human life experience, or want more than their society-dictated share of it, and so they turn to the people who are also not on the same moral standing with the rest of society. The author also shows that Love can be like a pair of rose-colored glasses. It covers up less palatable truths.

In each understanding of the poem, the brothel scene comes to an end when the speaker's Love enters the brothel and the dawn creeps down the street. On a literal level, the coming f the dawn and the shutting down of the brothel shows that the night is for the things we wish to hide from society and the day is when they ids and moral beings are free to roam. In bother of the deeper meanings, the coming of the dawn shows that the light creeping down the street is like a knowing now that the speaker sees his Love for what it is. That one action sheds light on the whole situation and the brothel is not so fascinating anymore.

Overall, this poem on each of the three levels is very anti-prostitution and points out that it needs to be remedied. The author could b suggesting that the way to fix this is look at things for what they are. It is possible that his is suggesting to recognize lust and not to lust but love.