Themes
The cruelty of stupidity
Wilde's central claim is that prison cruelty needs no villain. 'Ordinary cruelty is simply stupidity. It comes from the entire want of imagination.' It grows from 'stereotyped systems, of hard-and-fast rules, of centralisation, of officialism', and the people who run it have excellent intentions. The case of Warder Martin shows a humane man dismissed by the rules; the case of A. 2. 11 shows that even a gentle Governor 'cannot alter the rules.' The target throughout is the system, not the men inside it.
Children in prison
The first letter is above all a plea for children. Wilde explains why a child suffers more than a man: it can understand punishment by a parent but not by Society, and so it falls prey to 'the emotion of terror.' The boy on remand crying for his parents, and the tiny child whose hunger Martin eased, make the argument concrete. His remedy is blunt: 'no child under fourteen years of age should be sent to prison at all', and a resolution of the House of Commons could settle it in half an hour.
Kindness against the rules
Against the system Wilde sets small acts of humanity. Martin buys biscuits and empties a sick man's slops, both against the rules, 'out of the simple humanity of his nature.' A pleasant 'Good morning' can make a man as happy as one can be in solitary confinement. The prisoners show 'their sympathy for each other, their humility, their gentleness', and not one of them smiles at the insane man in the yard. Wilde quotes Carlyle on 'the silent rhythmic charm of human companionship' to name what the cell takes away.
Body and mind
The second letter is built as a plain programme in two halves. The needs of the body are answered by adequate food, open lavatories and fresh air, against hunger, the insomnia of the plank bed and disease. The needs of the mind are answered by books, monthly letters and visits in a room. Wilde insists these reforms are 'simple, practical, and humane', and he warns that without them the system's aim seems 'the wrecking and the destruction of the mental faculties.'
Against sentiment
Wilde is careful to ask for reason, not pity. He does not wish 'to excite any momentary sentimental interest in these matters', and when he asks for the case of A. 2. 11 to be examined he wants experts in brain disease and people of 'common-sense and some pity', adding that the sentimentalist 'always does harm.' His own feelings on hearing the flogging, he says, 'have nothing to do with the question.' The force of the letters comes from exact detail: times, diets, cell hours, the number of lashes.