The Happy Prince

Background of the text

Oscar Wilde's tale "The Happy Prince" is a short story about friendship, kindness, and how selfless love can heal. It was first published in 1888 as part of the short story collection The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Other stories in the collection are "The Nightingale and the Rose," "The Selfish Giant," "The Devoted Friend," and "The Remarkable Rocket." Through the stories in the book, Wilde criticizes the attitudes of Victorian society in ways that are still relevant today.

Read the first edition of "The Happy Prince" here.

Synopsis of the story

The statue of the recently deceased Happy Prince stands high above the city on a tall column. He watches over the city in agony as his people suffer. A small Swallow flies over the city one night. Six weeks before, his friends had gone to Egypt for the winter, but he had stayed behind because he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He arrives in town and takes refuge at the feet of the Happy Prince’s statue. The Swallow notices the prince was crying, and the prince explains that he is sad because he had spent his entire life in palace, despite all the misery in his kingdom, and had never experienced such pain. Now that he is a statue, he can see his people's suffering, so he requests that the Swallow distribute the gemstones and gold leaves from his form to various families in need.

The Happy Prince's statue (p 6)

Because the Swallow has come to love the prince, he stays with him. When winter arrives, the Happy Prince statue loses its beauty, and the Swallow dies from the harsh cold, thus breaking the prince’s heart. When the city Mayor notices the statue's poor condition, he decides to demolish it, melt it, and erect a new statue of himself. The prince’s lead heart and the Swallow are discarded because they seem worthless to the Mayor and Town Councilors. However, when God requests that an Angel bring him the most valuable items in the city, the Angel brings him the dead Swallow and the Prince's heart. God tells the Angel he has rightly chosen.

Characters

THE PRINCE

The Prince is revived from the dead as a golden statue and placed on a platform overlooking his domain. The Happy Prince's monument is characterized as gorgeous, and his name is an irony reflecting his anguish at seeing his kingdom's inequity. Despite his given name, laments his city's tragedy and the lack of compassion shown by those in positions of affluence toward those in need.

THE SWALLOW

On his way to Egypt, the Swallow stops to rest on the statue of the Happy Prince. When asked to assist the townspeople, he is initially standoffish towards the Prince’s requests. Eventually, the Swallow becomes a generous, compassionate, and friendly creature. He falls in love with the Prince and stays with him until his death.

THE REED

Although she only appears briefly in the story, the Reed is responsible for the Swallow's delay in traveling to Egypt. He tries to court her. However, his friends criticize the relationship because of her poverty and numerous lovers. She decides not to travel to Egypt with the Swallow, effectively ending their relationship.

THE LITTLE MATCH-GIRL

She a child weeping because she dropped her matches in the gutter and cannot bring her father any money. She is afraid her father will hit her. The swallow gives him the Happy Prince's second sapphire.

THE TOWN COUNCILORS

They first appreciate the monument's appearance, but then refer to it as "shabby" and finally destroy it to replace it with a statue of the mayor.

THE BEATIFUL GIRL

The seamstress (p 29b)

She was dissatisfied with the seamstress's preparation of her dress for the state ball, and she told her boyfriend about it.

THE SEAMSTRESS

She is embroidering passionflowers on a satin robe for a member of the royal family, but she has nothing to feed her sick child. The swallow gives her the Happy Prince's ruby.

THE PLAYWRIGHT

He is attempting to complete a play for the Theatre Director, but he is too chilly and hungry to continue writing. The swallow sends him a sapphire from the Happy Prince.

THE GROUP OF OLD JEWS

They are negotiating and using copper scales to weigh money.

GOD

He requests that an angel deliver him the two most valuable items in the city. The angel sends him the heart of lead and the corpse of the bird. God affirms that the angel made the correct decision.

Themes

BEAUTY

Oscar Wilde was an advocate for the Aesthetic Movement – Art for The Sake of The Art - that influenced most of his work. The narrator of “The Happy Prince” starts by describing the aesthetic beauty of the prince’s statue and its majesty, focusing on the richness of the statue:

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.

One of the Council members' opinions reveals that his values were foolish and based on the external aesthetic and beauty:

He is as beautiful as a weathercock," remarked one of the Town Councilors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; ‘only not quite so useful,’ he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.

Such values based on external beauty appear to be contagious and a common behavior among the privileged class of society of the tale. The narrator describes the Happy Prince’s statue from the perspective of a child and his Master. The children's view of the statue as perfect reflects the information they receive about the world in which they live:

He looks just like an angel," said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores. "How do you know?" said the Mathematical Master, "you have never seen one." "Ah! but we have, in our dreams," answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.

The concept of beauty takes precedence over the usefulness or utility of things. It demonstrates society's obsession with beauty as surface. The fact that the characters in the story who appreciate beauty appear to be all from high society is satirizing society's lack of understanding of what is the beauty of art and what is useless.

INEQUALITY

Another major theme in "The Happy Prince" is inequality. When the Happy Prince asks the Swallow to fly over his kingdom and report to him what he sees, the Swallow observes that “the rich [were] making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. [Then h]e flew into dark lanes and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets.” In fact, it is the indifference of the wealthy and privileged for those in need which contributes significantly to the misery of the less fortunate. The Swallow notices this inequity while flying to aid someone in need: he witnesses a beautiful girl moaning to her lover about a seamstress's poor work, which may cause her dress to be late for the night ball; then the Swallow goes in a room where a poor youngster is tossing and turning in his bed, and his mother, the beautiful girl's seamstress, has fallen asleep exhausted of a job that did not pay her enough to purchase her son medication.

This story is an open and honest critique of the privilege that existed in that society at the time, which only served to reinforce cycles of inequality and separation for those in need. This critique is timeless because, despite being pointed out, society continues to maintain its unequal conditions.

LOVE AND KINDNESS

“The Happy Prince” also conveys a positive message about the transformative power of love and compassion. The prince embodies the same values as Jesus, who gave his life to suffer to alleviate humanity's suffering. Previously unaware of his kingdom's inequity, the prince now sees how society behaves and the consequences. To make up for his previous life of luxury, he devotes himself to helping others and save his kingdom. In the beginning of the story, the Happy Prince expresses his dissatisfaction with his past when he says:

When I was alive and had a human heart […], I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans- Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening, I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So, I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead, they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead, yet I cannot choose but weep.

Love and kindness spread like wildfire. The Swallow pauses his journey to Egypt to assist the prince in his efforts to help those in need of his kingdom. Such actions make the Swallow realize how good it is to help others; once he returns from his first flight to assist a needy family, the Swallows share with the Happy Prince how he feels about it: "It is curious, […] but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold." The prince explains: "That is because you have done a good action.” Love serves as a countervailing force to the unfairness and decaying standards of the society. The beauty of this Wilde tale is that even though it was written and published more than a century ago, the lessons it contains about life continue to be relevant even today.

Symbols

CHILDREN

Poor children under the bridge (p 21a)

Wilde used innocent characters to show how society's harmful deeds may tarnish a child's innocence and lead to the recurrence of cycles of inequity and injustice. Children were invoked as symbols of human greed and injustice's devastating force. For instance, when the speaker narrates “He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings. 'How cool I feel," said the boy, "l must be getting better"; and he sank into a delicious slumber.”

THE PRINCE' S LEAD HEART

When the prince’s dear friend, the Swallow, died of cold, the prince’s lead heart cracked into pieces. The mayor of the city then melts the Happy Prince statue to construct a new statue of himself, and the lead heart is thrown away as garbage, but is rescued by one of God’s angels. The lead heart represents genuine beauty, not superficial beauty. Although the Happy Prince was made of gold and stone gems, his true beauty lay within.

THE STATUE

“The Happy Prince” is a parable used to communicate Christian values to a dysfunctional society. The statue represents Jesus and his tender love for humanity, who saw the suffering and dedicated his life on earth to helping those in need.