Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and other Fairy Stories by Lauryn H.

In Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince and other Fairy Stories, Wilde is aiming to teach children of christian morals and values. I specify that the book is for children because it is small in size and has a very attractive cover that easily captures the attention of others. The book also has fairly large print for its pages. This makes it impossible to put too much onto one page and, in turn, hold attention and prevent a wandering mind. Through these stories, Wilde teaches lessons on the values of  having sympathy for others, generosity, and overall kindness.  

Beginning with “The Happy Prince”, Wilde teaches generosity by breaking down the happy prince’s statue from all of his glorified appearance and giving those pieces (jewels, gold, etc.) to whoever the prince could see struggling. Wilde also teaches the benefits of being generous by the prince becoming happy again after giving all of these materials that are literally a part of himself away, and by having the prince find love with the swallow. This “win- win” situation also continues in “The Selfish Giant”, where the Giant literally meets and befriends a child disguised as Jesus (who personally takes him to paradise when the giant dies), after reopening his garden to the children to play in. 

Building off of generosity, “The Nightingale and the Rose” also shows children that being generous does not always benefit you. The Nightingale was willing to help this stranger crying about not winning over the love of his life since he couldn’t find her a red rose, so she scoured the garden begging each bush. When she found the right bush however, the cost for it was her life, and she was willing to pay it so the student could find love- and all she got in return was death. Reading “The Nightingale and the Rose” by itself would just make it seem like a sad story, reading it in combination with other works makes it seem more like a fable that focuses on the uglier sides of being a giving Christian.

To focus on kindness, Wilde uses  the protagonist’s social rise and fall in “The Star Child”. The child was found as a baby, and was thought to have been born from the stars. He used this notion to justify being cruel to animals and those he deemed unfavorable. When his beauty and “start status” was stripped from him, he eagerly sought his mother out for forgiveness, was sold into slavery,  and risked his life by betraying his master- for a beggar on the verge of death. Through these acts, his beauty was regained and he was crowned king out of nowhere- a miracle.

“The Young King” really focused on the Christian value of having sympathy for others. The young king was a bastard son who was able to claim the throne after his father died. He was so fascinated by these new materials of wealth and later on that night when he slept, he saw all of the things other people had to suffer through to create his coronation clothing. He then refused to wear the clothing and was blessed by God and gifted with coronation clothing from God himself for his refusal. This story actually reminded me of the Bible story of Joseph, where God gave Joseph the power of dreams which granted him success he and his family had never dreamed of.