Analysis of the Harlot's House

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The poem "The Harlot's House" by Oscar Wilde presents contrasting images of the nature of love and lust. The narrator appears both disgusted and fascinated with what he sees in the window of the harlot. A song representing true love plays in the harlot's house while skeleton-like creatures of lust dance with "the dead." This tune eventually "turns false." The women, described as ghostly and slim, wire-pulled and lifeless, serve as the physical manifestation of the decay of true love and the focus on lust. They attempt to emulate real feelings but cannot get beyond being bound to their mechanization. Like wire-pulled automatons, Slim silhouetted skeletons Went sidling through the slow quadrille, Then 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. The prostitutes try to dance but can only sidle (creep or slither). They laugh but their laughter comes out thin and shrill. They even try to sing, but fail. Their male partners, described as phantoms, have no true passion within them either. They seem only motivated by sexual desire. Sexuality and death repeatedly appear together. Despite the narrator's opposition to the grotesque scene before him, the poem also presents these women as fascinating. He describes them as strange and fantastic and watches them from night until dawn. The narrator's absorption suggests that though he finds their treatment and situation appalling, something about them entices him. The poem presents further complications for the man when his own love enters the harlot. 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

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