The poem "The Doer of Good" by Oscar Wilde appears to take
place in the Holy Lands during the time of Christ.
The two
allusions of the two men in the story refer to a leper and a blind man, both of whom
Christ healed in the New Testament accounts in the
Bible.
The sense of the central figure of the story being
Christ is supported by Wilde's allusions to the two miracles mentioned above, as well as
his use of the capitalized pronouns "He" and "His," as is done in the New Testament
referring to Christ, and throughout the Bible when referring to
God.
The theme of the story (that human nature is hard to
change, even in the face of life-altering circumstances) can be applied to any time
period and any situation, as it refers to the human condition. However, the structure
Wilde uses to present the theme using [well-known] allusions, and his use of Biblical
"voice" in the narrative provide (at least figuratively) a setting of the Holy Lands
where Christ and His disciples lived and worked.
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