The Happy Prince analysing the relationship between the Swallow and the Happy Prince

For his point of view in writing: “art for art’s sake”, he built successfully the two main characters touching the reader’s heart - the Happy Prince and the Swallow.. Since then has begu

The Happy Prince is not only an interesting fairy tale for children but it also contains thoughtful morals for adults by Oscar Wilde’s pen For his point of view in writing: “art for art’s sake”, he built successfully the two main characters touching the reader’s heart - the Happy Prince and the Swallow They give us a beautiful picture of a good relationship between two non-human entities but through their relationship, we can find the real validity and beauty of human beings

The Happy Prince was a real prince before He lived in a palace where no sadness and worry can come until he dies After he died, he became a statue stood high above the city Because the value of society bases on gold and jewels, he is thought to be beautiful and presents for happiness: “His body is covered by leaves of fine gold; for eyes he had two bright sapphires ” However, when he is a statue, he realizes that everything is different Observing the poor are in miserable circumstances, a statue with a lead heart as him weeps The Swallow is on his fly to Egypt stops below the statue and eventually becomes touched by the statue’s kindness and desire to help the others when he sees the Prince’s tears Since then has begun the relationship of the Happy Prince and the Swallow It’s friendship He becomes the messenger of the Prince and agrees to bring jewels and gold from him to the poor For the first time, the Swallow resisted the Prince’s offer but he used his deeply-felt words to convince the Swallow to agree: “Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” “will you not stay with me…be my messenger…” Although the weather here is getting colder and colder, he is late for the trip with his friends and even he was hurt by the boys, he ignores them and forgives This friendship is very beautiful because it makes two different entities sympathize each other and with the others by means of their righteousness and generosity If the Swallow can put off the trip and his desire for his love with the Reed, now he can postpone it just for a good deed of his friend This makes him feel warmer in the cold weather Thus, the Prince uses this close name and demands his friend by the honest way repeated many times in the story: “Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow”, “will you not stay with me one night longer?”, “

do as I command you” and the Swallow obeys him well

Especially, this beautiful friendship finally turns to love Despite the cold winter, the Swallow has no longer wanted to leave the Prince because he loves him now He was blind

and he sacrificed too much for the sake of the others However, he doesn’t force or offer to keep the Swallow as he loves him and he doesn’t want to let him die of coldness “No, little Swallow, you must go away to Egypt”, “…you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you” The Swallow knows that his bigger dream is bringing help to those who are in need and being his friend eyes as well as gives him a company throughout the winter He can not let him weep alone with his powerless He must be with him to share with his friend about the marvelous things as well as miseries that people are suffering and continue helping them Nevertheless,

it is not a normal love It is a love between two men and it is in contrast with the love of the Swallow with the Reed The love of him with the Reed is a true love lasting from the spring

to the whole summer Even though he was warned that the Reed is poor, he didn’t want to abandon her However, it bases on the outer beauty He loves her because of her beauty They are not well matched Their ideas and desires are so different She loves wind but he doesn’t On the contrary, he loves travelling but she loves bounding at home and flirting with the wind Therefore, their love failed The Swallow loves the Prince, not for the first sight They both do the charity together for the love of poor people and then understand each other They can not be separated However, the little Swallow can not stand the coldness and dies

At the same time, the statue is also broken down because of his ugliness and useless God praised their love and humanity and let they live a happy life together in the heaven Whether through their relationship, the author is sympathizing with himself for his homosexual practice and appealing us to sympathize with this love? Oscar Wilde here shows that real love

is regardless of everything and finally will be rewarded Shallow minded people can not accept this great love and lose the humanity However, God and angels can see it This irony indicates that the quality of love is the most important thing

Through their relationship, Oscar Wilde wants to transform his moral lessons to the reader: we shouldn’t live for ourselves, we should share and sympathize with the difficulties

of the poor and needy as well as the others Besides, it also points out that beauty and materialism are not important as the life of human beings We gain happiness through sacrifice, sharing and love Generosity is only real when we sacrifice to the others without receiving something in return Especially, love is for everyone and they must have the equal rights so we should accept, sympathize and respect instead of criticizing them or keeping them away from our society

As a student like me, I don’t have much money as well as jewels and gold like the Happy Prince but I will ready to give them my hands in volunteer works like the Swallow to delete the distance between people and people in our society