Bài luận văn phân tích tác phẩm Analyze Happy Prince By Oscar Wilde

HAPPY PRINCE - LECTURE
“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.”
Right at the beginning of the story, Oscar Wilde describes the beauty of his
piece of art, the statue, and this is not a normal statue. This is the statue of a
lucky man in the community, the prince. He is called the happy prince
because when he was alive, he lived a very happy life, and he believed that
he had a happy life too. He appears in the story as a statue of best stones,
and gold, and diamond, and many valuable things that are to show the value
and the respect of the prince.
“He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a
weathercock,” remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a
reputation for having artistic tastes;
The Town Councillors remarked on the beauty of the statue, or the
prince, not because they really admired the beauty of the statue, but they
wanted fame, or they wanted to gain reputation. Being recognized and
famous is the real motivation for their comments. They did not really admire
the beauty of art, they just wanted to be known, to gain a reputation for
having artistic tastes, so they remarked “He is as beautiful as a
weathercock,” but while they remarked, you can see that they understood
nothing about that. That is because usually we do not compare the beauty of
something with the weathercock.
“Only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing lest people should think
him unpractical, which he really was not”.
This line is to show that he thinks that people may not know that how
practical he is, so he continues his comment by adding one more thing “only
not quite so useful”. By these words you can see how stupid he is. He can’t
distinguish the true value of art and the usage, the fashion of this piece of
art. There are so many of art that are beautiful but they don’t need to be
useful because they are pieces of art. Art itself has its value to be beautiful,

we don’t care much about its fashion.
“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of
her little boy who was crying for the moon. “The Happy Prince never dreams
of crying for anything.”
The writer introduces one little boy, and that is crying for the moon.
Have you ever cried for the moon in your life? Maybe you will say no because
we are grown up, we are practically not babies anymore. That is why we
never cry for the moon, but the children could do so because they are


children; they are interested in crying for curious things in life, so they’re
crying for the thing that they cannot have. In addition, children are very
imaginative, creative, and craving, so they eagerly want to have something
they are expect. This little boy wants to have the moon, and the reason is
that because he is not very fine now, he is sick. He is crying asking for thing
in a way of children who are getting sick. When he says: “all I want is to have
that moon” for example and his mom is not very happy because of that.
“I am glad there is someone in the world who is quite happy,”
muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.
It means that this disappointed man doesn’t mean that there is one
British in the world who is quite happy because he is a disappointed man.
You know that he is not an optimistic British, so he doesn’t think that there is
a happy one in the world. We are not pessimistic, but we have to accept, or
admit that living is suffering. In fact there is no one is quite happy in the
world. We could be happier than other people but we are not the happiest,
and no one is quite happy in life. Sometimes we are sad; sometimes we are
happy. That’s why the man is a very disappointed but also experienced one.
He is right to think that no one in the world is quite happy, and it is the truth.
““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.”
You can see that, these charity children are innocent, and they simply
think that the statue, the prince is so beautiful. They compare the beauty of
the prince to the beauty of an angel. It means that he is beautiful and holy.
“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’s dreaming.
This detail reflects the bad side of educational system. There is a white
teacher, a Mathematical Master, and that person is not happy seeing
children dream about the amazing thing in their imagination. This
Mathematical Master doesn’t support the children’s imagination, dream, and
creativity. He doesn’t believe in a ….town with angels, princes and princess.
He is a Mathematical Master, so he is so practical in this view point. That is
to say he doesn’t have time for imaging, and he doesn’t support any kids’
imagination. Because of this view point, or this narrow view point, he
educates the next generation to become practical people like him. They will
be as practical as he is when they grow up. They don’t believe in angels.
They will be selfish; they will be self-centered. They think about their own
benefits. They are kind of living in their own world that they don’t share.


They don’t care about the others. They don’t have time for something like
dream. These children are not allowed to dream, to believe in their dreams
and to try their best to make their dreams come true. They will grow up to
terrible ones, and they will create a world in which there is no space for
better things if they don’t know how to dream and how to make the world to
be a better place to live in. If they dream, they will want to change the world,
they will want to make things that make lives more beautiful. If they don’t

dream, they don’t believe in the goodness of mankind, they don’t try their
best to change the world, so they should fall in to the selfish, the sadness of
their lives. Thus, the wrong way of education from this Mathematical Master
reflects the way that the society, the town councilors and many other
governors view at their educational system and will educate the next
generations.
“One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had
gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was
in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as
he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so
attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.”
This swallow is childish. He is in love with the reed, and this is because she
has a slender waist. He is attracted by her physical appearance. He is like a
lot of men in this world who are attracted by girls.
“Shall I love you?” said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at
once, and the Reed made him a low bow.
In fact, the Reed doesn’t say anything because there is love between them.
She can understand that because she is a kind of reed, a plant that lives,
curls into the river bank. Thus, when the wind blows, her whole body will be
up and down, up and down that makes she look like she is making a bow. If
fact, she doesn’t say yes or “I shall be your lover”, so the Swallow seems to
be unexperienced in love, in life. Thus he thinks that the reed agree to be his
lover.
So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and
making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the
summer.
His courtship lasts so shortly; it is just in a summer. When the summer is
gone, what happen?
“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other Swallows;
The other Swallows who observe the relationship, the courtship of the

Swallow and the Reed say it is a stupid attachment. Why? Because she is a
reed, she has no money, and far too many relations.


Thus, the way the other swallows feel about love shows how practical, how
selfish people are. They don’t love someone because that person is poor,
“she has no money”. Even this person is not too poor, they still take the
relationships of this person into consideration. This reed has a lot of
relations, and having a lot of relations means she is not a good girl, she is a
kind of flirting girl or maybe she has a lot of brothers, sisters or relatives to
take care. She is poor and has a lot of people who depend on her usually, so
she is not a good girl to choose, to love, and to marry. We can see that they
are too cold and practical in life. This reflects the whole society. It is just the
courtship of the Swallow and the Reed, but it tells a lot of things about the
people in the town, and about the people in general.
“and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds.”
A lot of reeds are living close together because they are reeds. They cannot
live alone and grow in bushes. This is to show that this girl has a lot of
neighbors that need her to take care of.
“Then, when the autumn came they all flew away. After they had gone
he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. “She has no conversation,”
he said, “and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with
the wind.”
When the Swallow no longer loves the reed, he tries to find an excuse to say
goodbye to her. This is what men do to women. When they don’t love their
ladies anymore, they try to say something that they used to spend a lot of
time when they were still in love. When they were not in love anymore, they
could find a lot of things unbearable. One of the reasons why the Swallow
doesn’t want to have a love affair with the reed is she is not a girl of good
manners. She flirts with the wind. In fact, she is not flirting with the wind.

She is a woman, so she has to up and down, up and down with the wind all
the time. In fact, the first time, the swallow met the reed, she was flirting
with the wind. However, at that time he was head over heels in love, so he
thought that she agreed to be his lover. When time goes by, he is tired of her
and gets bored of her. Thus, he said to himself she was not a girl of my style
because she was a flirting girl. What else? She was so tired. She didn’t
communicate and know how to share with him.
“I admit that she is domestic,” he continued, “but I love travelling,
and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also.”
How can reeds travel to somewhere without wings? Swallows have wings, so
they can fly from this place to another place, but for the Reeds, they don’t
have wings, how can they fly? If the Swallow understands the love, he has to
learn to adjust himself or he has to accept her as she is. He makes a good
excuse to say goodbye to her.


'Will you come away with me?' he said finally to her; but the Reed shook
her head, she was so attached to her home.
'You have been trifling with me,' he cried, 'I am off to the Pyramids. Goodbye!' and he flew away.
All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. 'Where shall
I put up?' he said 'I hope the town has made preparations.'
Then he saw the statue on the tall column. 'I will put up there,' he cried; 'it is
a fine position with plenty of fresh air.' So he alighted just between the feet
of the Happy Prince.
'I have a golden bedroom,' he said softly to himself as he looked round, and
he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his
wing, a large drop of water fell on him.'What a curious thing!' he cried, 'there
is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it
is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed
used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness.'

Then another drop fell.
'What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?' he said; 'I must
look for a good chimney-pot,' and he determined to fly away.
The raindrops are not the raindrops at all; they are tear drops.
But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked
up, and saw - Ah! what did he see?
The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears
The prince is crying, so his eyes are filled with tears. He sat down a lot of
teardrops.
and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in
the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.
'Who are you?' he said.
'I am the Happy Prince.'
'Why are you weeping then?' asked the Swallow; 'you have quite
drenched me.'
'Who are you?
'I am the Happy Prince.’ answered surprisingly
The happy prince is crying. If he is the happy prince, he shouldn’t cry. He
should smile instead. The fact that this happy prince is crying shows he is not
happy.


'When I was alive and had a human heart,' answered the statue, 'I did not
know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci where sorrow is
not allowed to enter.
This is the line reflecting the theme of the story. The prince says when he
was alive and he had a human heart, and he did not know what tears were. It
means that when he was alive, when he was a human being, he were happy,
he did not cry at all. He lived a very happy life, and tears meant nothing to
him. The reason is because he lived in a place of Sans-Souci where sorrow is

not allowed to enter. It is a lie because we know that there is no place in the
world where sorrow is not allowed to enter. If sorrow is to enter a place it just
enters. You cannot prevent it. You cannot say “hey, stop, you are not allowed
to enter, so go away”. When sorrow comes, it comes. Thus, in this palace of
Sans Souci, sorrow was not allowed to enter or the prince himself did not
realize that them. Sorrow existed every where outside the palace, from the
streets to the dark corners of the town. Only his place, the palace of SansSouci, sorrow was not allowed to enter because this was a place for the rich,
for the families of royalty.
In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the
evening I led the dance in the Great Hall.
So you can see that his life was full of activities, fun, garden parties, and
dance, music.
Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay
beyond it
If he did care to ask what lay beyond that lofty wall, he could know a place at
least where sorrow entered. However he looked at the wall and he didn’t care
to see the life beyond the wall or what out of that.
everything about me was so beautiful.
Everything about his life was so beautiful. It’s so great that he doesn’t know
about sorrow. When he died, he doesn’t have a human heart anymore, he
experiences the suffering of sorrow. That’s why he is not happy, and he
knows that the palace of Sans-Souci is not an ideal place to enjoy happiness.
My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure
be happiness.
We know that pleasure is not happiness, so the if clause here “if pleasure be
happiness” helps the readers see that the prince is not happy indeed.
So I lived, and so I died.
The prince lived his life in an unmeaningful way. It was just a bare existence,
it was not alive to him. So he lived and so he died, it is just like many people.

They were born, they grew up, they got old and finally they died. They did
not do anything special to ccontribute to their community. they did not really
realise the significance of their life; they were not well aware of their
existence. They could not answer why they were there. Can you answer the
question “why are you here in this world?”, “what for?”. Maybe the answers
will be to go to school, to get a good job, to earn money to support family. If
you cannot answer the question, you should figure it out. Is it a life worth
living or just a life wasted? Thus, you can see this story teaches us the lesson
of meaning of living here, in this world. The prince used to have a happy life,
but when he has become a dead statue, he realised that he did not live a
happy life. Happiness is not pleasure. This is the feeling deep inside. You
cannot fake it or pretend to be happy. You can cheat everyone but yourself.
You are so sad but you can wear a happy face with a happy smile to fault
people, but you cannot lie to yourself. That’s why the prince has to admit
that he was not happy even he used to think that he was so happy.
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.'
It means that now, when the happy prince is a dead statue, he is put at a
very high position. He can see everything, and he knows that life is not like
what he used to think of. His life and his people’s lives are quite opposite.
'What, is he not solid gold?' said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to
make any personal remarks out loud.
The Swallow is not thoughtful enough to think about philosophy. He just
simply pays attention to the fact that the prince has a leaden heart. He is not
a golden one. He is not made up of diamond or any precious stones. It is just
lead. The Swallow surprisedly said:'What, is he not solid gold?'. His outside
from his head to his feet, from the top to the toe, is made of gold, but deep
inside the most important part of his body, the heart, is not gold. It is a

cheap metal. This is something surprising. The Swallow is polite. That’s why
he doesbn’t ask the question, he keeps it to himself instead.
'Far away,' continued the statue in a low musical voice,'far away in a little
street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I
can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has
coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress.
So the prince is taliking about a poor case of a mother and her sick boy. This
hard working mother is trying to finish her work embroidering flowers on a
satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen's maids-of-honour to wear at the
next Court-ball. She works very hard. She’s tired then, she is kind of asleep
for a while her son is crying.


In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever,
and is asking for oranges.
This little boy is so thirsty and he wants to drink something. He is crying for
the food but his mom is too poor to give him anything but river water. This
detail is moving. River water, a kind of free thing, is what the mother doesn’t
need to buy. It means that she is extremely poor. If you were a mother, would
you feel painful or sorry for not having money to buy your kids some
oranges? Would you be happy enough to finish your work? Of course not.
That is why she cannot finish embroidering passion flowers for the Queen’s
maid.
Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my
sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.'
'I am waited for in Egypt,' said the Swallow. 'My friends are flying up and
down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus flowers. Soon they will go to
sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted
coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his
neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.'

'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince,'will you not stay with me
for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother
so sad.
What do you think about the prince? He does not command the swallow, but
he asks the swallow in the way of asking the swallow for doing his a favor. By
calling 'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow’ the prince shows that how tender he
is, how kind he is, and he shows his respect to the Swallow. He is not
commanding him, but he is asking for help. He is begging the swallow to do
him a favor. “Will you not stay with me for one night” it is not agressive but
affective.He says “please stay with me, help me because i cannot move, but
you can. You have wings, you can fly to them and give the things that i have
to them so that they can buy some oranges. The boy can get over soon, and
the mother can finish what she is doing”.
'I don't think I like boys,' answered the Swallow. 'Last summer, when I was
staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller's sons, who were
always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly
far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but
still, it was a mark of disrespect.'
But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry.
So you can see that the prince doesn’t use his power to ask the Swallow to
do things. He uses his honesty, his sincerity. And by looking into the prince’s
face and eyes, the Swallow feels sorry for him. He can see that the prince


really wants to help people, and he is quite sincere and honest in his hope.
That is why the Swallow decides stay with him for one night.
'It is very cold here,' he said 'but I will stay with you for one night, and be
your messenger.'
'Thank you, little Swallow,' said the Prince.
So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince's sword, and flew

away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town.
He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were
sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A
beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. 'How wonderful the
stars are,' he said to her,'and how wonderful is the power of love!'
On the balcony, there is a couple, and the man is so romantic and so happy
with the power of their love. He is looking up into the sky and says ‘how
wonderful the stars are’. If you are in love, you look up the sky, the stars at
night will be very beautiful to you. If you look up the sky and you just see a
dark sky, you are so sad with your life. He says to her “how wonderful is the
power of love!”. If you were the girl, how would you react? You and your lover
are on a balcony. Your lover looks up at the sky and says “how wonderful the
stars are’ and looks into your eyes and says how wonderful is the power of
love”. How would you answer? Yes, honey or something like our love is so
great, so beautiful.
But that little girl says: 'I hope my dress will be ready in time for the Stateball,' she answered; 'I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it;
but the seamstresses are so lazy.'
This means that they are not speaking the same language. The boy is
speaking the language of love while the girl is speaking of her beauty and
her fashion, her selfishness. She is saying people are lazy. They are not a
good couple. They are speaking their own languages, so there is no
understanding, no sharing between them. Unluckily, there are a lot of boys
and girls who are speaking different languages, but they still think that they
are lovers. That is the reason why when they get married, they may divorce
soon. Thus, you should be very careful in love, listen to every word that your
lover says and carefully check whether you and your lover are speaking the
same language. If you are thinking about the kindness of people, and your
lover thinks much about money, you should think of break-up. This is
because the two of you speak different languages, you cannot understand
each other. It is not communication. If there is no communication, there is

good relation, and soon it will be broken. Thus, this story teaches us another
lesson about love.


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, 'I must be getting better;' and he sank into a delicious slumber.
Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had
done. 'It is curious,' he remarked, 'but I feel quite warm now, although it is so
cold.'
The Swallow is surprised. He feels warm although it is cold, and he doesn’t
know why. The prince knows why, and he answers:
'That is because you have done a good action,' said the Prince. And the little
Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him
sleepy.
The reason why the swallow is warm should be because he had done a good
thing. When you have done a good thing you feel warm in your heart.
When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath.
'What a remarkable phenomenon,' said the Professor of Omithology”
The Professor of Omithology is a professor who studies birds
as he was passing over the bridge. 'A swallow in winter!' And he wrote a
long letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full of
so many words that they could not understand.
This detail reflects the stupidity of those who are proud of their certificate,
their education. There is a professor studying birds. He goes out in the street

and sees a Swallow in winter. Then he writes a very long article to the
newspaper agent for a publishment. If you were a professor and you saw a
swallow in winter, would you do a serious reseach in this or would you write
a long article to be published for a very common phenomenon, a Swallow in
winter. That’s not very special. Of course, Swallows fly away when the winter
comes. But if there is one swallow left, it is something quite understandable.
It is not so strange, so amazing, so difficult to understand that you have to
write an article. Howerver, this professor, he has to write a long article and
wants it to be published. In his article, there are so many words that people
cannot understand. he sends it to a local newspaper. Because of his name,
his title, “professor A, B,C”, this article is published. It is not because the
article is useful or the professor discovers something new, something worth
knowing, but because he is a professor. People publish this article, and


everyone quotes it, but no one understands. If they don’t understand, why
do they quote those words? because they want to show off, they want to
prove that “hey, people cannot know that i don’t understand”, they have to
quote it to fault the others. When i quote it, i make the people believe that i
understand the article. All the peole in the city quote his article, but none of
them understands. This shows how stupid, how ironic in the scholar, the
professor, the well educated people are. This also reflects dark side of the
education system in which professors are not introduced. Whenever they do
a research, it turns out to be nonsense, and people kind of quote the
research to show how good they are. However, in fact they are not good at
all.
“To-night I go to Egypt,” said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at the
prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time on top of
the church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, and said to
each other, “What a distinguished stranger!” so he enjoyed himself very

much.
So you can see that he just was a little child who loves being recognised and
admired.
When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. “Have you any
commissions for Egypt?” he cried; “I am just starting.”
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay with me
one night longer?”
“I am waited for in Egypt,” answered the Swallow. “To-morrow my friends will
fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the
bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All night long
he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he utters one cry of
joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions come down to the water’s
edge to drink. They have eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than
the roar of the cataract.
He is telling abot an amazing destination, Egypt, where everything is like
words in a fairy tale, but the prince is not interested in listening to his story
because to him the suffering of his people is much more considerable and he
worries about his people. He doesn’t care how amazing life is in Egypt.
So he says:
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “far away across the city I
see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers,
and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is
brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and he has large
and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre,


but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger
has made him faint.
“I will wait with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, who really had a
good heart. “Shall I take him another ruby?”

This time the Swallow doesn’t need the prince to say “Swallow, Swallow,
little Swallow, will you not stay with me one night longer”. This time the
Swallow volunteers to stay, so you can see that the Swallow is changing.
In the beginning, he doesn’t care about life of poor people.
After helping the mother and the sick boy and getting along with the good
act, he becomes kind of better. This time he volunteers to help the prince.
Now the Swallow has a good heart, and he does think about the others.
“Alas! I have no ruby now,” said the Prince; “my eyes are all that I have left.
They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a
thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it
to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish his play.”
“Dear Prince,” said the Swallow, “I cannot do that”; and he began to weep.
The reason why is that the swallow doesn’t want to pluck out the eyes of the
prince. Plucking one of eye, the prince has one eye to see, but if he plucks
two eyes, the prince becomes a blind one, an he cannot see anything. You
know that being blind means you die. You cannot see how beautiful the world
is, you cannot see the faces of your friends. You live in darkness, so it’s not a
life.
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command you.”

This is the first time the prince has said “do as i command you”, but it is not
a command at all. The prince uses the strong words to show how determined
to be blind to have enough things to have people. This is very kind of him.
So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye, and flew away to the student’s
garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through
this he darted, and came into the room. The young man had his head buried
in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird’s wings, and when he
looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.
“I am beginning to be appreciated,” he cried; “this is from some great
admirer. Now I can finish my play,” and he looked quite happy.

What do you think about this young playwright. He has’t finished any play
yet. He is still writing it, still making it, but when he wakes up and then he
sees the sapphire, he says: “I am beginning to be appreciated,”. If you were


him, what would you say first? You are so cold and hungry; you are so poor
and tired. You cannot finish your play and then you sleep for a while. Then
you open your eyes and see that there is a precious stone. You can sell it to
have money for your food, for your fire, and for your warm clothes.
Moreover, you can fulfill your dream, what would you say? He says “I am
beginning to be appreciated” how can he know he is appreciated? He hasn’t
finished any play yet, he still writes it. He doesn’t say that “who took this
here or who gave it to me”, he just says “I’m beginning to be appreciated”. It
means that he is overconfident. He believes that he is good enough to have
admirers, and one of his admirers gives him this thing. You can see that he is
not very thankful, very greatful to the one who has helped him. If you finish
the story, you can see that none of the help recievers shows the gratitude to
the helper. This is because they believe that they deserve to be help as they
are good enough. They don’t think that they are helped because the helpers
are kind, but they think they are helped because they are good. Thus, they
don’t care about doing something to show their respect, their gratitude to
their helpers as a thank you message.
The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of a
large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with
ropes. “Heave a-hoy!” they shouted as each chest came up. “I am going to
Egypt”! cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon rose he
flew back to the Happy Prince.
“I am come to bid you good-bye,” he cried.
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay with me
one night longer?”

“It is winter,” answered the Swallow, “and the chill snow will soon be here. In
Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the
mud and look lazily about them. My companions are building a nest in the
Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves are watching them, and
cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget
you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of
those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and
the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.”
He is talking about Egypt and the prince says
“In the square below,” said the Happy Prince, “there stands a little matchgirl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her
father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, and she is
crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare. Pluck out
my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her.”
“I will stay with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, “but I cannot pluck
out your eye. You would be quite blind then.”


“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command you.”
And this time, the prince will be blind because two eyes are plucked.
So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye, and darted down with it. He
swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her
hand. “What a lovely bit of glass,” cried the little girl; and she ran home,
laughing.
The girl doesn’t say thank you for helping me or why do you give it to me,
but she says what a lovely bit of glass. Children are carefree; they are
thoughtless, so they don’t show their gratitude to the bird and the prince,
but the grown-up, the seamstress, the playwright, they don’t say thank you
to the little bird and the prince. They live in the society in which people do
not really say thanks to someone by whom they are helped. The rich people
is selfish living in a place where sorrow is not allowed to enter, and they

enjoy their luxirious lives with a lot of beautiful things, with their material
things. The poor people are suffering from the poverty, when they are helped
they don’t care about the helpers. Both the rich and the poor in the society,
they are selfish thinking of themselves and their own benefits.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are blind now,” he said, “so
I will stay with you always.”
The Swallow wants to fly to Egypt because his friends are there and he will
be safe when the winter comes. However, when he knows that the prince
cannot see anymore, he decides to stay. Chosing to stay means chosing the
death because the Swallow cannot survive through the harsh winter with
snow falling down, strong wind and with no food. The Swallow decides to
stay with the prince, to die with him for the good friendship that they
maintain. The Swallow is a kind one.
“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must go away to Egypt.”
When the Swallow wants to go away to Egypt, the prince says “Swallow, stay
with me”, but when the Swallow says “I will stay with you always”, the prince
says ‘no, you have to go to Egypt right now’. Both of them care about the
safety, the well-being of their friends. They are good friends, they don’t think
about their own benefits, but they think about their friends. They sacrifice
themselve for the sake of their friends, for the safety and happiness of their
friends. The Swallow and the prince in this story form a very good friendship
because they do think about each other. They don’t think selfishly about
themselves.
All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him stories of what
he had seen in strange lands.


He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the
Nile, and catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the
world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants,

who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their
hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony,
and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palmtree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies
who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the
butterflies.
The Swallow tries to cheer the prince up by a lot of amazing stories about
ther marvellous landscapes in Egypt, but the prince refuses to be told these
story. He says
“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of marvellous things, but
more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women.
There are many wonderful things on earth, but nothing is as wonderful as
suffering, the struggling of mankind for their survival. The prince wants to
say that ‘Swallow, tell me the reality of living and struggling, don’t tell me
the beauty of a dreaming land where the poor people cannot reach. The
happy prince doesn’t want to know how luxurious, how beautiful life is, he
wants to know how his people live their lives.
There is no Mystery so great as Misery. It is a theme of the story, Mystery is
as great as Misery because thanks to the misery, you can become a good
human being, you learn a lot of good lessons for your life. You know how to
live your life and you know how to share with people, how to help to show
your kindness, your goodness. Thanks to misery, it says a lot of things about
you and people around you. In contrast, mystery is just somehing mysterious
and it doesn’t show how strong you are as human being, how kind you are as
friend and how brave you are as living creature. Thus the prince wants to
listen to miserable stories from miserable lives.
Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.”
So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in
their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates.
There are two opposite worlds, the world of the rich with beautiful houses
and the world of the poor with beggars sitting right at the gates which are

very close to the world of the rich. They have beautiful houses, of course
they have beautiful gates, but they don’t care about the beggars sitting right
at their gates. They just enjoy their lives, their beautiful places. They don’t
care about who are unlucky.
He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking
out listlessly at the black streets.


You can see that starving children looking out with no purpose, they are quite
hopeless in lives. They look out at the black street. For what? They can see
the dark only. It means that starving children are so hungry, that they cannot
run around, they cannot play, talk and laugh. They tiredly look at the streets
and they find darkness, emptyness, loneliness. There are innocent children,
but they suffer from poverty at very young age. How about the adults? They
would be more visionable because they understand lives.
Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another’s
arms to try and keep themselves warm. “How hungry we are!” they said.
“You must not lie here,” shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into
the rain.
The two preposition out and into are very good prepostions of English. they
wandered out means that they get out of the rich and they go into the rain.
You know that it is just the archway of a bridge. It is a public place. No one’s
house, so why doesn’t the watchman let them to lay under the bridge, to
stay warm for one night. He is selfish, he doesn’t want the image of those
poor boys, kind of painting his city an ugly one. He just wants everything to
be perfect, but in fact the city is not perfect at all. The poor are there, but
the rich try to avoid them, they don’t want to see them because their
appearance remind the rich of that the poor are still there. They are selfish,
so that is why the watchman doesn’t like to see the poor people lying,
staying under the archway of a bridge. The little poor children cannot defend

themselves, so they have only one way to get out of the bridge and to go
into the rain. A rain in winter is extremely cold. They have no warm clothes
and they are hungry.
Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.
“I am covered with fine gold,” said the Prince, “you must take it off, leaf by
leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold can make them
happy.”
Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince
looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the
poor, and the children’s faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played
games in the street. “We have bread now!” they cried.
Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked
as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles
like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody
went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the
ice.
So you that they are like the greeting cards, christmas cards that people
send to each other at christmas. The streets are beautiful with colorful lights.
Children are in their warm coats, and they have rosy cheeks. It means that


they are full, they are plump, they are lovely in their winter fashion. The
adults go out in the street to enjoy christmas, snowman, chatting, to
celebrate parties. Everyone is living a very happy life except the prince and
the swallow.
The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the
Prince, he loved him too well.
Children are rosier, bigger, happier. People are richer, fuller and happier.
He picked up crumbs outside the baker’s door when the baker was not
looking and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.

Now he has to keep himself warm by moving his wings, but no one helps
him. He used to be the one who people who are cold and poor in winter. Now
they are ok with their life, in turn he is cold and no one there to help him.
That’s life. You sacrifice and help people, you don’t care about whether they
say thank you t you or they show gratitude to you. You just honestly do all
the things you can to help people. You sacrifice everything even your eyes,
your life. In turn, when you become poor, no one helps. People don’t care;
they busy enjoying their new life. They easily enjoy their new lives and they
forget the helpers. That’s so sad.
But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to
the Prince’s shoulder once more. “Good-bye, dear Prince!” he murmured,
“will you let me kiss your hand?”
“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,” said the Prince,
“you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love
you.”
“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.
At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something
had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It
certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.
People think that because of the hard frost, the leaden heart is broken into
pieces, but you know the reason why. It is because the Swallow dies and the
prince is so painful.
Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in
company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked up
at the statue: “Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!” he said.


“How shabby indeed!” cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with

the Mayor; and they went up to look at it.
“The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no
longer,” said the Mayor in fact, “he is litttle better than a beggar!”
“Little better than a beggar,” said the Town Councillors.
“And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!” continued the Mayor. “We
must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die
here.” And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.
This again shows how stupid the town Councillors, the leaders of the town
are. How can you issue a law and in that law you write birds are not allowed
to die here. How can they do such a silly thing? Birds can choose any place
they want to die. Even human being, if we die, we just die. People cannot say
“hey, you are not allow to die in this street, you have move to that street to
die”. What happen to the city if they make policy for the city, if they decide
what they should do for the city, if they lead the city to somewhere? Can
they lead the city’s people to somewhere? They are stupid, arrogant. Their
policy is selfishness and corruption.
So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. “As he is no longer
beautiful he is no longer useful,” said the Art Professor at the University.
He is no longer beautiful. Art professor must understand that a piece of art
can be beautiful but not useful. If all pieces of art are useful, we will have no
abstract painting. If something beautiful, it doesn’t need to be useful in vice
versa. The art professor must be the person who clearly distinguish the
fashion and the beauty of any piece of art, but this art professor doesn’t. The
professor of birds writes a silly papers. The mathemathical master says silly
thing about children’s dream. All the educators of this city are not good
enough to educate people. Oscar Wildes shows us a city in which the leaders
are stupid, the teachers and professor are stupid too. Children are innocent,
but they are not well educated. They don’t know how to say thank you to the
helpers. The adults are practical in love and selfish in life. A society in which
everyone is bad except the Swall and the prince. It seems that good people

die young, and the bad live long and enjoy the life. That’s life.
Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of
the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. “We must
have another statue, of course,” he said, “and it shall be a statue of myself.”
“Of myself,” said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarrelled. When I
last heard of them they were quarrelling still.


They always agree with each other on all issues, but when it comes to the
issue of their own interest and benefit, they disagree. Each of the town
councillors wants the statue to be their image.
“What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry.
“This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.”
So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying.
“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” said God to one of His
Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.
“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in my garden of Paradise this little
bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall
praise me.
Why? God is the as a whole. He knows which one is precious and angel
knows which one is precious. The angel offers god two precious things the
broken leaden heart of the prince and the dead bird. to angel and god, the
most precious things are enough. The other things such as diamond,
precious stones, gold, big houses, mysterious things, great places,
marvellous cities are nonsense in the eyes of them. God needs the kindness,
the pure. The leaden heart and the dead birth meet his requires. They
represent true friendship, great sacrifice, goodness of mankind. They
deserve to serve god, to sing song for him and angels in the paradise while
all the rich, the poor, the professors, the grown-up and the children go to the
hell. Only the leaden heart and the dead bird can stay in paradise garden

because they are pure, they are kind, they sacrifice themselves to help the
others.