KidLit Forum

The Happy Prince
by Oscar Wilde
The Happy Prince is a beautiful statue made of gold, with two sapphires instead of eyes and one ruby on the hilt of the sword. After the cold arrives, only one swallow remains in the city and decides to take shelter for one night under the statue. It seems that the soul of the prince remained inside the statue and the both (the prince and the statue) start a conversation. The statue confesses that when he was a prince, he wasn’t aware of the situation of his citizens, but now, he sees how miserable they are. The prince, crying, asks the swallow to take the ruby and deliver it to a poor woman whose son suffered from fever. The swallow agrees but he says that the next day he has to fly away to Egypt because the winter is almost there. The next day, the prince has another request. He saw a writer who was hungry and felt sorry for him. The statue asks now the swallow to take one sapphire and deliver it to the writer. He does this but he insists he has to go to Egypt. The next day, the prince asks one more favor. The other sapphire has to be delivered to a match-girl in the square. The prince remains now blind and the swallow promises to never leave his side. He takes every leaf of gold from the prince and gives them to the town’s poor people. But the winter was there and because of the cold, the little swallow died. In that moment, the lead heart of the happy prince broke. The next day, the mayor of the town saw that the statue wasn’t so beautiful anymore and decides to take the statue and melt it. The only thing that can’t be melted is the lead heart and this is thrown along with the dead swallow. At the end, God asks his angels two of the most precious things from that town and they take the heart of the prince and the swallow to God, and they live happily ever after in paradise.

This is such a beautiful story with a special ending. The irony is seen even from the title: The happy prince. Actually, the prince wasn’t happy. He felt miserable because he saw how poor and unhappy his citizens are. He wanted to help them because before his death he wasn’t aware of their suffering. As a statue, he saw their misery and gave all his precious stones to help them. He was helped by a swallow.

I think that there is a critique made on Victorian social expectations. The fairy tale shows a writer who feels exhausted due to the weight put on his shoulders by the society.

The moral and the central theme is that we shouldn’t judge someone because of their appearance. The prince gave up his beauty just to help the others, but the town people thought he was ugly without his precious stones and gold and they threw him away. Instead of being thankful to the prince, the town’s people treat him with disrespect.

Also, the swallow’s sacrifice is very important. He gave up his life in order to help the prince and the people. And does he receive? He is thrown away along with prince’s heart but God receive them in paradise at the end of the story.