The Happy Prince short summary & analysis

The Happy Prince - Oscar Wilde

The Happy Prince Analysis

One of the most important authors of British literature, Oscar Wilde, has a story book called The Happy Prince, which consists of four stories. Their main ideas were to get together in the book, Wilde mentioned the topics like sacrifice and goodness.

The Happy Prince Short Summary

When reading The Happy Prince, it will warm the cockles of your heart and here its summary;

Once upon a time, there was a very happy prince. This prince would not cry for anything and does not get sad, he made his castle wall really tall. The reason for it, was to never encounter bad things or the things that will make him sad. He always wanted to smile and he could not stand crying. His people would envy him, and wanted to be more like him. One day prince died. They immediately made his statue to honor him. This statue was located in the highest spot in town and made out of gold. Prince’s eyes were made out of sapphire and his swords buckle was ruby. Happy prince was surprised when he saw this new place. He was surprised what he was seeing from his new spot, he did not see anything because of his high walls in his castle. The people were not happy like him. On the contrary, everyone was in poverty and distressed. When he was crying, a swallow lands on his legs. Because it is migration time, the birds were about to leave but a tear drop lands on its head.

Prince started to explain the situation to the bird. He tells the bird about the family’s condition. In a house far away, the mother and her child were in misery. The child was in bed both hungry and has a fever. Prince tells the bird to give the family one of the ruby eye. The bird could not migrate for this reason that night. It was the next day and prince saw another house. A student could not find a fuel because he could not afford it. Thus, he could not do his homework. Seeing this, prince tells the bird to take his other ruby eye to give it to him. The bird did what it was told again. Swallow wants to migrate but could not because it wants to help out the prince too. There was no longer a worthy thing in prince. In the mean time, swallow is having a hard time. It has to leave this cold city as soon as possible. Swallow helped the prince again. In the morning, in the feet of prince, swallow freezes to death. The statue is now a worthless stone. Municipal congressmen sees this and decides to remove the statue and melt the gold. Money coming from this was going to help build a new statue of the new mayor.

They melted the statue but there is a lead heart left which was thawless. This heart was left where the body of the swallow located. God said to angels to bring two invaluable things from earth. Angels bring the body of the swallow and the indestructible lead heart of the prince.

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