The Wilde Trials in Fiction: The Law as a Tool of Oppression

Abstract

This paper is an analysis of the three trials concerning Oscar Wilde as found in contemporary fiction. Looking at the Brian Gilbert’s film Wilde, Ken Hughes’s film The Trials of Oscar Wilde, and Moisés Kaufman’s play Gross Indecency, the law is found to be a tool of oppression in Victorian society. Upon further exploration, Michel Foucault’s discourses on the law and sexuality are discovered, including the “specification of individuals” and diagnosing homosexuality as an illness. The three fictional representations thus educate the audience by casting the law in a negative light.