The sharp satire and depth of Oscar Wilde’s tales are especially felt in his tales. He often criticized the English community. Behind this seemingly extravagant look was a rather interesting personality. He was known for his expressiveness and humor. From his fairy tales, several main topics can be distinguished: kindness, injustices, and love. Yet despite the unfairness of society, goodness does not remain unseen, and a universal life force or god always restores it.
The theme of kindness is especially evident in the tale ‘Happy prince’.
In a city full of poor people suffering, the swallow that remained after his flock flew to Egypt for the winter meets a statue of the late ‘Happy Prince’, who never experienced real sadness. He lived in a palace where he was not allowed to grieve. seeing the various scenes of people suffering in poverty from his high monument, The happy prince asks the swallow to remove the ruby from the hilt, sapphires from his eyes, and the gold leaf covering his body to give to the poor.
When winter comes and the Happy Prince loses all his beauty, his lead heart breaks when the swallow dies as a result of his actions and severe cold. People remove the statue from the statue intending to replace it with the new one, and the metal melts in the stove, leaving a broken heart and a dead swallow; they are thrown into dust. They are moved up into heaven by an angel who thinks of them as two of the most precious things in the city.
This is confirmed by God, and they live forever in his ‘city of gold’ and the Garden of Eden.
Another Wilde’s The selfish giant is a fairy tale that teaches us the importance of kindness and love. As in his other stories, there is a deep meaning. The giant is strong, and he can throw ouan t young children from his garden. And so he does. However, this does not bring him peace and happiness. After the children are taken out of the garden, cold and frost settle in his yard. It’s always winter in his garden, and spring never comes. He does not like this and is always sad. But despite this situation, he does not know what to do. Even autumn will pass by his door. Everything changes when he hears a little bird singing from the yard. And when he goes out and sees the children sneaking into his garden and sitting on the branches of trees, something changes in him.
He even helps one little boy to climb the tree. After such behavior he becomes happy. Therefore, he realizes that true happiness comes when you help others and share your wealth and strength with others. After this day he does not see this little boy but always tries to find him. And finally, when he is very old and about to die, this little boy comes and helps him ascend to heaven. I think that Oscar Wilde wanted to emphasize for us and recall that every time we help someone in need, we help Christ.
‘ Remarkable rocket’ is Oscar Wilde’s other fairytale. Although it is a fairytale here the author discusses subjects that are real for adults. He speaks quite cynically about an arrogant and self-conceited society. The main character is a rocket, as we see from the title, who thinks that he is the most important person and everything is done for him when no one notes him. We can compare such kind of behavior with some members of society. On every level, in this story, we can see the author’s attitude toward boastful and ambitious people and their stupidity. For example when the king raises the salary of his servant who doesn’t have a salary at all or when the frog likes his singing and thinks that everyone likes this cacophony. In the whole story, we can see that none is capable to assess the situation adequately and everyone lives in their world as it is in real life. and the saddest thing is that they have no idea about the real situation.
The story lectures us to be simpler and not to raise ourselves above all. A pompous rocket could not fulfill its function, which spoiled the holiday for many people.
This fairy tale teaches us not to be selfish, not to live only for ourselves, but to live for other people. It teaches us to love people and especially children. It teaches us to strive to make the world a happier place and teaches us that it becomes warmer with joy and laughter. Shows that everyone can recover and become a different and better person.
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” Oscar Wilde.
The life of Oscar Wilde himself was also symbolic. From his student years, he was known as a follower of aesthetics and dandyism, striving for everything beautiful, and therefore his work had to be flawless, and this required a lot of hard work. The writer tirelessly corrected his work before giving it the perfect look. Despite his hard work, he faced many problems and even shame in life. We can say that he died at an early age. We can hope that, like many of his characters, he was raised to heaven by angels.
Tales of Oscar Wilde. (2022, May 13). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/tales-of-oscar-wilde/