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The Happy Prince

Character:

There are following characters in this story that has been listed below:

Happy prince:

The happy prince is the statue of the prince of this town, who has lived a sorrow-free life and knew nothing about struggle and hardships. The statue was one of the splendid piece and property owned by this town as it was encrusted with many precious stones and jewels like sapphire, ruby and gold leaf.

The swallow:

Shallow is another major character of this story that rests at the statue of the happy prince during his travel to Egypt. Shallow is the character through which the prince helped all the helpless people who needed money for fulfilling their necessities and the happy prince ask the shallow to take his sapphire, ruby, and golden leaves to those needy people one by one.

Town councilors:

Town councilors were the two morally corrupt caretaker of the town and they were more concerned about their reputation. It was a part of their nature to ignore those things that do not seem beautiful or beneficial to them.

Mayor:

He is the one who wanted to replace the statue of the happy prince with his own. His narcissistic attitude could be seen by looking at the way he was using his power. He was a more self-conscious person who wanted to see himself at the top.

Seamstress:

She was the one who used to make the clothes for the princesses and queen’s maids of honor. She was so poor that she could not even buy oranges for his ill son. The happy prince decided to give his ruby to this lady.

Writer:

He was a young man and the only intellectual person that could be seen in this story who despite the killing winter was writing on a project that was assigned to him.

Crying little girl:

She was the young girl who was on her way back after buying the matchbox but she, by chance, dropped that matchbox on the snow and started crying. The statue of happy prince asks the shallow to help her.

The crying son:

He was the young son of the seamstress who was suffering from fever and wanted to eat orange.

God:

God is also one of the characters of the happy prince and appeared in the ending lines for safeguarding the body of shallow and leaden heart of the happy prince. God promised that He is going to take these two things to paradise as these two are much more precious than anything else.

Language:

The language that has been used in this poem is simple, easily understandable, figurative and comprehensible. Different literary devices have been used in this poem such as personification has been used.

Narrator:

The narrator of this story is a third-person omniscient. He is the one who tells the readers about what is going to happen next in the story. He is all seeing, but much of the story is told from shallow's point of view. This narrator also provides us the background that how people used to praise the beauty of this decayed statue which is no more a piece of splendid beauty for them now.

Themes:

Many themes have been discussed in this poem, and these themes are listed below:

Love and compassion:

Theme of love and compassion could be seen in the character of the happy prince, shallow and the seamstress. The happy prince used to love all the people who were living in that town and because of the love that he has for others, he asked the shallow to give away all his precious things to those who were going through a harsh time in their lives.

Sacrifice:

Prince sacrificed his ornaments for helping the poor people and the shallow sacrificed his life for the happy prince as the shallow helped the prince in fulfilling the necessities of needy people.

Being judgmental by appearance:

People considered the statue beautiful when it was new and without any flaw but when it decayed that thought that it was not beautiful at them all.

Morality:

Morality was discussed as one of the major themes of this poem and the narrator had condemned the immoral behavior of certain characters in the poem.

Poverty, Greed, and Inequality:

By looking at the story one could easily see that all the issues of the story were mainly because of poverty, greed of well-settled and elites (Mayor and town councilors) and the inequality of the power and resources among people.

Setting:

This story is telling us about the setting of the country where this story was written and this country was Ireland; it was cold winter at that time when Oscar wrote it during the 19th century. There were around 8 million people during 1840s and this population dropped in 1880 to 4.5 million. This city had seen a harsh time when there was poverty all around, and people were living by hand to mouth.

Social context:

The social context that has been portrayed in this story is that people were divided into two groups one with everything and the other having nothing in their hand. There was clear discrimination in the lives of poor and rich. Selfishness and meanness of the society was at its peak when Oscar Wilde wrote this story that could be seen in the characters of Mayor and town councilors. Both positive and negative aspects have been shown in this poem. If the Mayor and town councilors are depicting the negativity of that society, then one could have a look at the characters of prince and shallow who sacrificed themselves for others.