essay questions on the happy prince

The Happy Prince Questions and Answers

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Summary Of The Happy Prince

This is an interesting story about the statue of a Happy Prince and a little Swallow. The Prince was a sublime statue situated on a tall column high over the city. The idol was plated with fine leaves of gold and he had two brilliant sapphires settled instead of eyes. He had likewise a precious ruby settled in his sword hilt and his heart was made of lead. Every one of these things made the Happy Prince captivating.

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The Happy Prince

One night a little swallow flew there over the city. He was worn out and needed some rest. He saw Happy Prince and choose to spend the night between his feet. As he was set up to rest a large drop of water fell on him. It was interested in light of the fact that there was no cloud in the sky. Sooner or later, another drop of water fell on him. The swallow was exasperated. He chose to escape from that point to search for somewhere else for relief. Simply then the third drop of water fell on him, he gazed upward and incredibly, he saw that these were the tears overflowing from the eyes of Happy Prince.

On seeing this, the heart of the swallow was filled with pity. He asked Happy Prince who he was and for what reason, he was crying. The Happy Prince replied the swallow that he lived in the palace when he was alive and had a human heart. There was no sorrow and distress around him and his courtiers called him Happy Prince. After his passing, he had been set up on the high column. His heart is comprised of lead yet it generally sobs when he sees the ugliness and hopelessness of his city. He told the swallow that at a distance in a little street, there is a little child of a seamstress who is feeling the fever. He is crying because his mother couldn’t give him oranges to eat. He requested that the swallow giveaway his ruby to the poor lathe day when he was going to Egypt. He complied with the Happy Prince and after that, he flew and laid the ruby on the table of the poor woman.

Happy Prince then saw a writer. He was cold, moreover, he was starving. Happy Prince asked the swallow to give the writer one of the sapphires. The swallow had no wish to remove the sapphire from his eyes, but he was reluctantly obedient.

The Happy Prince then saw a match girl and her matches had fallen into the rubble. At his command, the swallow again unwillingly slaughtered the other sapphire from the Happy Prince’s other eye and the prince was now blind completely. The swallow slipped the sapphire on the palm of the match girl. After that, the Happy Prince permitted the swallow to take off to Egypt but the swallow chose to remain with the Prince who had turned blind now.

The swallow revealed the plight of poor people. The swallow took from the statue the gold leaves and spread them among the destitute individuals as per the direction of the Happy Prince. The statue was currently dark and dull. The ice made the swallow colder and colder and he was going to die. He went to the Happy Prince, who asked him to kiss him on his lips. At the foot of the statue, the swallow fell and died. The leaden heart of the Happy Prince broke into two halves. The Mayor came and said that the statue should be pulled down, as it was either unpleasant not helpful. The broken heart did not dissolve in the furnace.

It was thrown out on a waste stack, which included the dead Swallow also. God asked the angels to bring to Him the two most precious stuff in the city. God applauded the decision of the angel’s decision in presenting to him the heavy heart of the Happy Prince and the dead Swallow

Read Also : Short Summary of The Happy Prince

Questions Of The Happy Prince

Q.Why do the courtiers call the prince ‘the Happy Prince’? Is he really happy? What does he see all around him?

Ans. The courtiers call the prince the “Happy Prince” because he lived in the palace where sorrow was not allowed to enter. He did not know what tears were and sorrow was not allowed to enter his palace. He was really happy because he was brought up in luxurious surroundings. For this reason, the courtiers called him The Happy Prince. When the prince died and his statue was set up in the city square. He could now see the reality of life from that height. He could see the misery of the poor and their pitiable condition. He could feel the pain his people were suffering from. All this left him no happier.

Q. Why does the Happy Prince send a ruby for the seamstress? What does the swallow do in the seamstress’ house?

Ans. The prince wanted the swallow to pick out the ruby from his sword-hilt and take it to the poor seamstress because he saw the poor woman’s son was seriously sick. He was crying on his bed. The boy was asking for oranges. But the woman could not afford. Therefore, the Happy Prince sent a ruby for her. The swallow put the ruby on a table and fanned the boy’s forehead with its wings.

Q. For whom does the Prince send the sapphires and why?

Ans. The prince sends one sapphire for a playwright and the other to a poor match girl. The Happy Prince saw a young playwright. He was leaning over a desk covered with papers. His hair was brown and crisp and his lips were red. He had large and dreamy eyes. He was trying to finish a play for the theatre. But he was feeling cold as there was no firewood, and hunger had made him faint. So, he could not finish the play.

The Happy Prince also saw a poor match girl. The match girl was weeping after she accidentally throws her matches into a drain. She was afraid that her parents would beat her. The Happy Prince helped both the playwright and the poor girl by sending them the sapphires.

Q. What does the swallow see when it flies over the city? Ans. When the swallow flies over the city, it sees the rich enjoying in their houses while the baggers begging at their gates. The swallow even sees two little-wretched boys lying in each other’s arms to keep themselves warm. In this way, the swallow sees the stark contrast between prosperity and poverty.

The swallow was a nice bird. He wanted to go to Egypt with his friends. At first, when he rests between the feet of the Happy Prince, he had no feeling of helping others. His quality becomes obvious when we notice tears in his eyes on seeing the Happy Prince’s heart aching. He discharges his duty with full loyalty and obedience. When he starts living with the Prince, he becomes more sympathetic towards others. He has a deep sense of service. He helps the seamstress by bringing her a ruby and fanned the sick boy with his wings. He helps the playwright and the match girl too. He rejected his idea to go to Egypt when the Happy Prince became blind. In the end, he died and fell down at his feet.

Q. Why did the swallow not leave the prince and go to Egypt?

Ans. The Happy Prince had become totally blind. The swallow was impressed with his charity and kindness. He had sacrificed everything for the good cause of helping the poor and downtrodden in their needs. He sacrificed even the two sapphires of his eyes thereby making it hard for anybody to prove more generous than himself. These unusual traits of the Happy Prince had a deep impact o amarn the heart of swallow. The swallow loved the prince now much that he could not leave him in that state. He decided not to go to Egypt. He remained there till his last breath.

Q.Why is the statue of the Prince described as looking like a beggar and being no longer useful? Ans. The statue of the prince had lost all that had made it great and resplendent. It had lost all it gold, sapphires and the ruby. It looked worn out like a beggar.

Q.What proclamation does the mayor make about the death of the birds?

Ans. The proclamation made by the Mayor was that no birds should be allowed to die in the city

Q.What impression do you gather of his personality form this?

Ans. From the Mayor’s remarks, we gather that he was an irrational and censorious person. Instead of thinking about the disappearance of the prince assets and what has made the statue so shabby above how has the bird died, he makes proclamations without any rationale. He just looks at the external appearance of things instead of thinking about the essence of things.

Q. What were the two precious things the angel brought to God? In what way were they precious?

The two most precious things mentioned in the story are the leaden heart of the happy prince and the dead swallow. The happy prince had sacrificed these to serve the suffering humanity and help the poor. The swallow fulfilled the wishes of the happy prince. He sacrificed his self-interest in going to Egypt. He carried gold and jewels to the suffering people. He remained with the prince in the bad weather also. He died at the prince’s feet. So, the angel was right when it took the leaden heart of the prince and the dead swallow to Heaven.

Q. What happened to the prince ’s heart? What feelings does the end of the story arouse in you? Ans. The prince’s heart broke into two halves when the bird fell dead at its feet. When the leaden heart was put into the furnace, it does not melt. So, it was thrown away. Therefore, the dead bird and the leaden heart met even after death. The end the story arouses in us deep sympathy for the two. The angels considered the leaden heart the most precious thing in the city. They took it to heaven.

SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS

Q. What made the statue so beautiful? Ans. The statue was covered all over with the fine leaves of gold. Two bright sapphires were fixed in place of eyes, and the heart was made of lead. A large ruby was fixed in his sword hilt.

Q. Why did now the Happy Prince what the tears were?

Ans. When the Prince was alive, he lived in a palace. The prince lived happily and knew no sorrow. Even the courtiers called him the happy prince. So, he did not know what tears were.

Q. How did God reward the Happy Prince and the Swallow for their sacrifice? Ans. God rewarded the happy prince and the swallow by giving them a place in heaven. The swallow will sing forever in the garden of paradise and the happy prince will live in the city of gold.

VALUE BASED LONG ANSWER TYPE OF QUESTIONS

Q. What obligations does the story teach us towards society? Ans. Society is where the protection of all individuals is the primary concern. We find people in society who suffer from all manner of ills such as poverty, hunger, diseases and natural disasters. Students can play an active part in social protection. Students can take on tasks such as educating poor children and adults. The fundamentals of learning can be taught to those without education. Students can play a major role in promoting concepts like hygiene and sanitary treatment. The importance of cleanliness should be taught to people. Moral values can be conveyed in addition to this. Short stories based on honesty, the discipline of truth, and so on can be popularized. This allows students to be a great bridge between the haves and have-nots. Students can create a society without sorrow or misery.

Q.What is the conclusion of ‘The Happy Prince?

The story concludes that goodness is everlasting and ever- rewarding. The Happy Prince was good for everyone. The widespread poverty and misery of people moved him. He gave his eyes, gold and jewellery to the needy. His heart was divided into two halves when the swallow died at his feet. The Gappy Prince’s statue was not useful anymore. It was dull and useless. The heart of the statue did not melt in a furnace as goodness could never be destroyed. The prince and swallow were both recompensed by God and gave them a place in Heaven.

Thus, good deeds are ever rewarding. In other words, good deeds always pay in one’s life. It is true that mortal life is meant to decay and death and good deeds make one immortal. In life, we get the utmost contentment and inner pleasure by doing some charitable act or by helping others. In the story ‘The Happy Prince’, both the happy prince and the swallow were rewarded for their good deeds by God. They found a permanent place in heaven. The swallow will sing forever in the garden of paradise and the happy prince will live in the city of gold. Thus the story teaches us to live a meaningful life by helping those who are in need.

Q. Do you agree that happiness from making others happy is far greater and deeper than any other happiness?

There are fun, happiness and thrill in buying things for ourselves and enjoying life on your own but the happiness got from making others happy is far greater and deeper than any happiness. We can get them by doing things just for ourselves. There is a Chinese proverb, “Fragrance clings to the hand that gives roses”. The fragrance of happiness clings to the heart that spread happiness to others. In the story, the Happy Prince could not see the misery of people. He lived a comfortable life inside the palace and never saw the misery and ugliness of the people around him but in the form of the statue when he witnessed the pathetic condition of the poor he sacrificed all to serve the suffering humanity and got everlasting happiness in heaven.

Q. The story presents a shocking contrast between external appearance and the essence of things. How?

This is a strange world. It presents a shocking contrast. Nothing succeeds like success here. So long you are powerful and strong you are respected and obeyed. In this dazzling world of wealth and riches, human feelings have no relevance. The statue of the Happy Prince was installed at the highest column in the most important square of the city. It was gilded all over with fine gold. His eyes had two bright sapphires and a large red ruby glowed on his sword hilt. He was a symbol of power, beauty and grandeur. The moment he lost his gold, sapphires and the grand ruby, he became very ordinary, ugly and useless. He was to be pulled down and melted in a furnace. The Mayor and the Town Counsellors were cruel and selfish.

Q. What is the moral lesson of “The Happy Prince”? Ans. The moral lesson of “The Happy Prince” is that the worst aspects of modern society can be overcome by righteousness Righteousness always plays an important in role bringing prosperity. The case might be of a person, a family, a country or a nation. Of course, wealth and power can provide luxury and comfort. But mental satisfaction and spiritual peace cannot be brought. Every spiritual and religious leader recommend that people take the right path and avoid the way of vice. It is possible to take care of the old, weak and downtrodden sections of society when you are virtuous. When you go the right way, the nation rises to great heights. Righteousness blesses a man with great satisfaction and happiness. In the story, the Happy Prince reached the highest level with his fellow swallows through righteousness.

Read Also: Exta Questions

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• What is the theme of The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde?
• What is the moral of the Happy Prince?
• What is the conclusion of the Happy Prince?
• Who is swallow in Happy Prince?
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• Why is the prince called happily was he really happy Why?
• What is the conflict of the story The Happy Prince?
• Why was the Happy Prince crying?
• What is the climax of the Happy Prince?
• Where was the statue of Happy Prince?
• How did the statue of the Happy Prince look?
• What is the theme of the story The Happy Prince?
• What kind of life did the happy prince lead when he was alive
• What are the precious things mentioned in the story The Happy Prince?
• Why is the prince called happy? Was he really happy? Why?

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A Summary and Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Happy Prince’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Of Oscar Wilde’s various short works for children, ‘The Happy Prince’ (1888) occupies a special place as his signature tale, and is perhaps Wilde’s definitive statement about the relationship between inner and outer beauty. ‘The Happy Prince’ is a sad tale that clearly owes much to earlier fairy stories, especially the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. However, it is also a typically Wildean story.

You can read ‘The Happy Prince’ in full here . Below, we offer a shorter summary of the plot of this tale, followed by an analysis of the story’s meaning.

  ‘The Happy Prince’: summary

The Happy Prince of the story’s title refers to a statue, made of lead but painted all over with gold. The statue’s eyes are sapphires, and in the hilt of the sword he holds is a bright red ruby. The statue stands high above a city, and is admired by those who live there because he looks happy and ‘like an angel’.

One night, a Swallow flies over the city, having stayed behind in northern Europe when his friends flew south to Egypt for the winter. The Swallow had stayed behind for love: he is in love with a Reed he had met in the spring. However, he begins to tire of the Reed, because she flirts with the wind every time it blows, and when he asks her if she will come away with him, she appears to shake her head.

The Swallow flies south, stopping the following night to rest. It just so happens that he arrives at the city where the statue of the Happy Prince is located. He decides to sleep underneath the statue of the Happy Prince that night, but when the statue starts to cry on him, he strikes up a conversation with it.

It turns out the Happy Prince isn’t so happy. In life, he had been a wealthy and privileged man who had been sheltered from the misery and hardship of ordinary people in the city. Only in death, when he became this statue looking down on the city and its inhabitants, has he come to realise how many people suffer and struggle.

He tells the Swallow to take the ruby from his sword hilt and deliver it to a poor seamstress whose son is ill. The Swallow reluctantly agrees. When he returns, he tells the Happy Prince what he has done and that he feels warm, even though the air is cold. The Happy Prince tells him that he has been warmed inside because he has done a good deed.

The next day, the Swallow prepares to bid the Happy Prince farewell as he must fly to Egypt to join his friends. But the Happy Prince persuades him to take the sapphire out of one of his eye sockets and take it to the poor young man who is so poor he is freezing in his garret and cannot finish the play he is writing. Once again, the Swallow does as the statue requests – though again, he does so reluctantly, this time because he doesn’t want to rob the Happy Prince of one of his eyes.

The next day, the Swallow once again says he must leave the Happy Prince and fly to Egypt, but the Happy Prince persuades the Swallow to remove the other sapphire from his eye socket and take it to little match girl who has dropped her matches in the gutter and will be beaten if she returns home empty-handed. The Swallow doesn’t want to remove the statue’s second sapphire because it will leave the Happy Prince blind, but the Prince insists.

Finally, the Happy Prince, having heard from the Swallow that children are starving in the city streets, insists that the Swallow remove his gold leaf that covers him and take it to the children so they can buy food with it. When the Swallow returns, having done this deed, he grows colder and colder, and, after kissing the Happy Prince on the lips, he drops down dead at his feet.

The Prince dies from a broken heart. The next day, the Mayor and his Town Councillors notice the lead statue without its gold coating and its jewels, and remark how ugly it looks. They also notice the dead Swallow at the foot of the statue, but express nothing but contempt for the dead bird. They have the statue of the Happy Prince torn down and decide that the lead will be melted down to make a new statue (of one of the Councillors, naturally).

But God, watching from heaven, tells one of his Angels to bring him the two most precious things in the city. The Angel brings him the lead heart from the Happy Prince (which wouldn’t melt when the rest of the statue was melted down) and the body of the dead Swallow who loved the Happy Prince. God announces that the bird will song in heaven for evermore, and the Happy Prince will praise God in his ‘city of gold’.

‘The Happy Prince’: analysis

‘The Happy Prince’ was written several years before Oscar Wilde wrote his one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), but in some ways it might be viewed as a fairy-tale version of that later Gothic narrative, but with the central conceit inverted.

Whereas Dorian Gray will remain outwardly beautiful while he commits foul and evil deeds (because his portrait, kept out of sight in the attic, turns grotesquely ugly while Dorian Gray the man remains young and handsome), the Happy Prince loses his outward beauty as he commits more and more generous and selfless acts. (We have analysed  The Picture of Dorian Gray  here .)

Indeed, the Happy Prince achieves spiritual beauty, as the last words in the story – spoken by God himself – attest. And although some critics have detected undercurrents of male love in the burgeoning friendship between the Swallow and the Happy Prince (who are both male, and share a kiss before they both die), this is a love between kindred spirits, two souls selflessly helping others.

The Swallow agrees to help the Happy Prince because he loves him, and the Happy Prince wants to give up his gold and his jewels out of compassion for the poor and downtrodden of the city.

‘The Happy Prince’ has been dramatised on many occasions, and remains one of Oscar Wilde’s best-known works – perhaps his best-loved short story. Bing Crosby and Orson Welles, those giants of Hollywood, even tried to make it into a musical extravaganza, though not with any real success.

Wilde himself once said that this and his other fairy stories were ‘an attempt to mirror modern life in a form remote from reality – to deal with modern problems in a mode that is ideal and not imitative’.

In some ways, we might regard ‘The Happy Prince’ as a combination of Hans Christian Andersen’s wistfully tragic fairy tales and Charles Dickens’s social problem novels about child poverty. But these influences find themselves combined with a peculiarly Wildean attitude to life and art: the statue must lose its outward beauty to be truly useful to society.

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5 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Happy Prince’”

The recent superb film The Happy Prince about Wilde’s latter years is titled ironically I think. Bravo to Rupert Everett ! The best Wilde on screen

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Fascinating how political attitudes appear in fairy tales. I have done it myself in my latest book, “Penny Down the Drain”where the characters try to clean up the oceans and take care of the land and will do so again when the next book comes out as it has an epidemic in it! It might be fantasy but reality intrudes.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › British Literature › Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince

Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on September 21, 2022

Arguably the most popular of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales, “The Happy Prince” is the first story in The Happy Prince and Other Tales , which was published in 1888. The narrative, which has been favorably compared to the work of Hans Christian Andersen and Andrew Lang, tells of the transformation of a swallow and a young prince.

The story begins with the swallow’s decision to leave his earthbound wife, a reed, to join his fellow birds in Egypt. Having waited in the hope that his wife would accompany him, the bird migrates alone. After a day’s flight, he seeks shelter from the elements beneath the bejeweled statue of a young man and falls asleep. Falling water awakens the swallow, who finds that the annoying moisture is not rain but teardrops from the statue’s sapphire eyes. The beautiful prince explains that he grew up removed from ordinary concerns in the palace of Sans Souci and knew only human happiness; however, since he was now outside that cultivated environment, he saw the grief of the people he had ruled and wept for their sorrows, despite having a leaden heart.

The swallow becomes, reluctantly, the prince’s messenger. The bird takes the rubies that adorn the prince’s sword to a seamstress whose son is ill, delivers the prince’s sapphire eyes to a poet starving in a garret, and gives the gold leaf that covers the statue to the poor of the city. Eventually, however, the bird dies in the cold, and the statue of the prince grows shabby. The mayor tears down the statue and has it melted for a new monument. As the mayor and the town councillors squabble over which of them deserves the honor, a workman notices that the leaden heart has not melted and discards it. An angel from heaven finds the dead bird and the rejected heart to be the most valuable items in the city, and God grants the bird and the prince eternal life in the garden of paradise.

The fairy tale, whose moralism seems antithetical to Wilde’s aesthetic, is consistent with Wilde’s sense of art. The genre, which may seem as simple as the lines of an Oriental drawing, has additionally a self-contained beauty: complete in itself and internally balanced. Paradoxically, the form presents truth without a slavish imitation of real life.

Short narrative, and the fairy story in particular, seem well suited to Wilde’s talent as a raconteur: These forms are compact and to the point, and they can blend sheer delight with surprising depth. Some critics, however, see Wilde’s success as a teller of fairy tales (whatever their appeal to an adult audience) as a symptom of his emotional immaturity. Another view might be that Wilde was playing with his audience in presenting a serious message for adults in a seemingly frivolous form for children.

Paradox is an important element in “The Happy Prince.” Although the statue has a heart of lead, it is purer than the gold leaf that clothes the body of the statue, and the prince’s artificial heart is more sympathetic than the human hearts within the presumably democratic leaders of the town. The metal heart is closer to the biblical heart of fl esh than the living prince’s heart was. The prince has a greater beauty after stripping himself of his outward attractions; the nobility of his soul is greater than that of his blood. The allegedly democratic rulers of the town, the mayor and the council, lack that inherent nobility of action and show less concern for the poor than does the aristocratic prince. Finally, the two most precious items in the city are on a dust heap; they seem to the inhabitants to be useless now that they have been used to improve the lot of the poor. All the good the prince and the swallow have done seems to have been for nothing, but it earns them a great reward.

Christian commentators on the story have seen the prince as a Christ figure who empties himself as a sacrifice for others. These critics also see “The Happy Prince” as a fable of a transformation from selfish interest to agape, the highest form of love. The prince has been aware only of aesthetic beauty; the bird cares only for himself. The sight of the unfortunate brings them to express a generalized love for humanity fully and unselfishly. Like Christ, the prince ultimately dies for his people.

Some have seen in this story a blend of Pater’s valuation of ancient Greek ideals with Christian principles. The emphasis on physical beauty comes from Pater’s thought, while the later emphasis on spiritual beauty comes from Christianity. Other recent commentators have focused on the elements of the story that seem to express Wilde’s sexual preference, and some look at the tale as a coded coming out. The fact that the swallow leaves his wife and keeps the company of a handsome young man has received emphasis and attention, as has the fact that none of the marriages in The Happy Prince and Other Tales produce offspring. Queer theorists see childless marriages in literature as a way of masking homosexual union, and other scholars have seen in the friendship between the prince and the swallow a veiled but unmistakable indication of sexual preference. They class this story with other Victorian literature in which strong same-sex friendship is a cover for homosexual love. The emphasis on the aesthetic beauty of the prince’s statue and the growing sensitivity of the prince are also seen as peculiarly homosexual concerns. Those who draw on Wilde’s biography note that he once remarked that his fairy stories were not just for children but also for a particular kind of adult, one who presumably could break the code.

Wilde himself, however, argued that life imitates art, rather than the reverse, and he saw in this tale a prefiguring of his transformation from the carefree, possibly careless, celebrity to the wiser and more compassionate man who emerged from Reading Gaol.

Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s Plays

BIBLIOGRAPHY Duffy, John-Charles. “Gay-Related Themes in Wilde’s Fairy Tales,” Victorian Literature and Culture 29 (2001): 327–349. Knight, G. Wilson. “Christ and Wilde.” In Oscar Wilde: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Richard Ellman, 138–149. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1969. Martin, Robert K. “Oscar Wilde and the Fairy Tale: ‘The Happy Prince’ as Self-Dramatization,” Studies in Short Fiction 16 (1979): 74–77. Wilde, Oscar. Complete Shorter Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

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The Happy Prince and Other Tales

By oscar wilde, the happy prince and other tales quotes and analysis.

“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the Swallow. “I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?” And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet. Narrator, "The Happy Prince"

The statue of the Happy Prince asks his new friend to help him in his mission to save his townspeople. The bird is initially reluctant but develops a strong bond with the statue. At this moment, the Swallow has continuously sacrificed himself for his friend. Just before he succumbs to the cold, he kisses the the statue on the lips, which is both a romantic gesture and a symbol of unconditional love. The framework of the fairy tale with its frequent animism and personification allowed Wilde to get away with this male/male kiss when it almost never would have been allowed in literature (especially children's literature) otherwise.

“Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.” Narrator, "The Nightingale and the Rose"

After hearing a lovelorn student’s cry for a red rose, the Nightingale goes on a mission to help him. When she realizes her only option to produce a red rose requires her to sacrifice her life, she hesitates but is convinced the student is truly in love. This passage is heartbreaking, because the Nightingale is literally pouring her heart out by singing a song of Love. She is sacrificing herself, like Christ did before he was put in the tomb, in the name of Love, something she knows to be greater than her own life. Her song reaches a climax as she finally offers her life for a complete stranger’s happiness. What makes this sacrifice all the more tragic is that the student's beloved rejects the rose so it is all for naught.

“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.” “Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.” Narrator, "The Selfish Giant"

Years have gone by since the Giant has seen his favorite child playing in his garden. When the child returns, the Giant is now old and weary, but he delights in seeing the child once more. On the boy's hands, though, are the marks of the stigmata, and while the Giant reveals that he does not quite understand this, the reader immediately realizes the child is Christ. Wilde's other clues then fall into place—the tree, referencing the Crucifixion; the solitary nature of the boy; the promise of an afterlife for the Giant.

“Certainly,” cried little Hans, “I take it quite as a compliment your coming to me, and I will start off at once. But you must lend me your lantern, as the night is so dark that I am afraid I might fall into the ditch.” “I am very sorry,” answered the Miller, “but it is my new lantern, and it would be a great loss to me if anything happened to it.” Narrator, "The Devoted Friend"

After selling his primary work tool in order to survive winter, Hans is desperate to find a way to afford a new wheelbarrow. Hans, the most altruistic human in the tales, continues to be naively blinded by his devotion to his selfish friend the Miller, and is constantly agreeing to do favors for him. Here the the irony is in the Miller refusing to lend his lantern to his “friend,” after asking him to brave dangerous weather conditions at night to fetch a doctor for his ill son. This irony permeates the entire tale because Hans is the devoted friend and the Miller is not; Hans is worthy of emulation and the Miller is not, though he certainly thinks himself worthy of it.

Suddenly, a sharp, dry cough was heard, and they all looked round. It came from a tall, supercilious-looking Rocket, who was tied to the end of a long stick. He always coughed before he made any observation, so as to attract attention. Narrator, "The Remarkable Rocket"

This introduction to the Rocket is a perfect encapsulation of his character. He coughs to call the attention of all the others, which is an obnoxious quality of a self-important character. He believes himself to be the most impressive firework to be used in celebrating nuptials of the royal couple. His narcissism leads him to burst into tears just to prove the depth of his character, which makes his goal of bursting in air for all to see an impossible one. Nevertheless, Wilde does not punish his Rocket, for when the Rocket explodes no one sees it, but the Rocket does not actually know that. Wilde's characters like the Rocket, Hugh the Miller, and the Infanta never have a comeuppance and are simply allowed to persist in their self-centered, delusional states. This is more realistic, the writer suggests, than all good people being rewarded and all bad people being punished.

...the King gave orders that the page's salary was to be doubled. As he received no salary at all this was not of much use to him, but it was considered a great honour, and was duly published in the Court Gazette. Narrator, "The Remarkable Rocket"

This is a small and insignificant moment in perhaps the least notable of the tales, but it is one that speaks to Wilde's amusing, insouciant irony and his ability to skewer the rich with one simple phrase. It is ironic because doubling a salary of zero is, of course, still zero, and the fact that this is published in the paper when it really means nothing changes for the page at all adds to the humor. Then there is the fact that the King has no idea what his pages make and most likely does not care at all, which bespeaks the indifference of the rich to the poor that is also articulated in "The Young King" when the boy in his dreams visits poor weavers who complain, "We must work to live, and [the rich] give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for them all day long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children fade away before their time..." (75).

...he would sometimes be accompanied by the slim, fair-haired Court pages, with their floating mantles, and gay fluttering ribands... Narrator, "The Young King"

"The Young King" may be a tale that is embedded with traditional moral messages, but it also has subtle hints of Wilde's homosexuality. The young King is beautiful, lithesome, elegant, and obsessed with all that is splendid and decadent. He surrounds himself not with a coterie of lovely young women but with these pages, also charming and youthfully handsome. They follow him around and he even has a favorite one, suggesting a relationship between the two.

And she sang a marvelous song. Narrator, "The Fisherman and His Soul"

Wilde's tales are gorgeous, sumptuous aesthetic marvels in their language and their structure, and they also espouse the value of art and beauty in their content. Paintings, sculptures, flowers and gardens, jewels, stars, songs, and pretty performances permeate his tales. Here the Mermaid uses song to bring beauty into the world; her art is one of creation and celebration. The Nightingale does a similar thing, as does the Young King when he is lit up with the glory of God like a medieval altarpiece. The arts are singularly important to Wilde, though he does probe their sometimes tenuous connection to morality.

"She said she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student, "but in all my garden there is no red rose." Narrator, "The Nightingale and the Rose"

This opening line of one of Wilde's most melancholy tales cleverly but subtly sets out what we are to encounter. The image of the rose is a potent one, as it symbolizes love and beauty and desire. The rose, however, also has thorns and can bring about pain and suffering; the color red is associated with blood and death. The Nightingale will be able to create this red rose for the Student but she will only do so by literally pricking herself with a thorn and bleeding the rose into existence. At the end of the tale the Nightingale is gone, the Rose is destroyed, and the Student is still bereft of his beloved.

As for the Infanta, she absolutely fascinated him. Narrator, "The Birthday of Infanta"

The Dwarf is a monstrous, ugly creature who has no place among the beauty and wealth of the Infanta and her palace. Though he is not aware of what he really looks like, he does instinctively know that this is not his world. He is thus captivated by the Infanta because she exemplifies beauty, youth, and art. She is like a little painting, splendidly and richly painted in jewel tones. She is all artifice, separated from the real world. The Dwarf cannot help but be attracted by her as most humans are attracted to Art and Beauty, but Wilde suggests that this is a dangerous thing. The Dwarf's fantasies and his assumption that he can be part of this rarefied world are completely wrong; he ends up dying because he has pursued something that cannot bring fulfillment or life. Art and Beauty are thus enticing but deadly.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Happy Prince and Other Tales is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

How did the happy prince help the poor

The Happy Prince is a short story by Oscar Wilde about a statue of a prince who lived in luxury and wealth, but after death became a messenger of love and compassion. Covered in gold leaf and jewels, the statue stood on a tall pillar in the center...

How did the happy prince help the poor?

The gold leaves and the jewels on his boy were taken out by the swallow and distributed among the poor.

Describe the friendship that develops between the Happy Prince and the Swallow.

The Swallow stops to rest on the statue of the Happy Prince on his way to Egypt, and is initially blustery and standoffish towards the Prince when asked to help the townspeople. However, the Swallow reveals his character and appears a generous,...

Study Guide for The Happy Prince and Other Tales

The Happy Prince and Other Tales study guide contains a biography of Oscar Wilde, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Happy Prince and Other Tales
• The Happy Prince and Other Tales Summary
• Character List

Essays for The Happy Prince and Other Tales

The Happy Prince and Other Tales essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde.

• An Elusive Utopia: Conflicting Christian and Socialist Themes in Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales
• A Moral Tale: Religion and Instruction in "The Happy Prince"
• The Foolishness of Love: Instruction in "The Nightingale and the Rose"
• Fairy Tales for Adults?: The Intended Readership of "The Happy Prince", “The Nightingale and the Rose”, and “The Devoted Friend”

Lesson Plan for The Happy Prince and Other Tales

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Happy Prince and Other Tales
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Happy Prince and Other Tales Bibliography

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