Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” begins by introducing the statue of the Happy Prince. Then the swallow is introduced as well, and there follows the encounter of the two characters: when the swallow is about to sleep between the feet of the statue, the tears of the Happy Prince falls on the swallow, and that is how they meet and interact for the first time. It is also how the Happy Prince begins to request help from the swallow, which is the majority of the content of “The Happy Prince”. In other words, if the two did not have the chance to meet and interact, the story would not go on, or develops into a completely different one.Despite its initial intention to fly to Egypt, the swallow decides to stay and help out with the various charitable requests made by the Happy Prince.
The more good deeds the swallow does, the more resolute it is willing to stay with the Happy Prince. However at this point, while the swallow is already supposed to be in Egypt, the weather gets colder and colder, and the swallow is about to die. This is the complication of the story, since the swallow can no longer be the messenger of the Happy Prince. On the other hand, the Happy Prince’s loss of all of his ornaments could also be a complication as well, since there are no more valuables to give to the needy anymore.
Then there follows the climax of the story, where the swallow says farewell its beloved Happy Prince and slips away. The story resolves when the mayor issues a proclamation to pull down the statue of the Happy Prince and melt it. However the lead heart of the statue remains and is picked up, along with the swallow’s dead body, by the Angels of God, as the two most precious things in the city. Thus is the end of Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince”.As for the “various charitable requests”, made by the Happy Prince and fulfilled through the swallow, we have thought that if the Happy Prince decided to first sacrifice the fine gold that covered him, he could have more opportunities to help even more people.
By this thought we came to a conclusion that the story might end in two very possible ways.The first: if the prince intends to help the needy one by one night, the swallow still stay with the prince for winter and die, while the prince becomes dull and grey and eventually gets taken down, and the story ends quite the same as the original story. The second: if the prince were to help a group of people all at once, just as how he intended to do with his fine gold in the original story, the prince would have become dull and grey earlier, and therefore he would be taken down much earlier. However, the swallow would survive—it no longer has any duties as the messenger of the happy prince, enabling the swallow to fly to Egypt, instead of staying cold through the winter.
