THE HAPPY PRINCE by Oscar Wilde

JUSTIFICATION OF THE TITLE

The title of the story, ‘The Happy
Prince’, presents its elements in a
symbolic manner. The story is
about a prince who used to be
happy when he was alive.
However, he was very sad after he
was placed atop a column as a
statue. The prince appeared to be
happy only because he knew
nothing of life outside of his
palace. Only after he died and
became a statue did he learn of
the people’s suffering and the
disparity between the rich and the poor. He sought happiness
by sacrificing himself for the happiness of others. The title thus
aptly suggests that the outward happiness of the prince is
symbolic of the superficial joys in life and real happiness lies
in having a compassionate heart.
THEME
• The story is based on the theme that love and sacrifice are
important values in human life. Happiness comes to those
who make others happy. Those who have compassion and
concern get as much joy as those who receive their
kindness and charity. Hence, one must try to live a life
guided by the virtues of love, sacrifice, benevolence, and
kindness.
• Inner beauty is more important than outward beauty. Real
beauty lies in love, compassion and sacrifice. The prince
 and the swallow sacrificed their outward beauty to attain
inner beauty by helping the poor and needy.
• There is a huge rift between the rich and the poor. We
should help the poor and needy people to our best capacity
and feel that inner bliss that the prince and the swallow
must have felt.
MESSAGE
• The first message is that we
must spread happiness
around us if we wish to be
happy. It is useless to mount
statues with gold and jewels
when the people are hungry.
The Prince could be happy
only as long as sorrow was
not allowed to enter his
palace. Once he saw pain,
suffering and injustice, even
his leaden heart cried.
• The next message is that disparity and sorrow in society
can be overcome by compassion, generosity and sharing.
The generous prince and the gentle swallow sacrificed
themselves to bring happiness to the poor and the needy.
However, their deaths did not end their lives. The
redemptive power of love made them live forever as the
precious and chosen ones of God.
• The most powerful message or moral lesson given by the
story is that it is very essential to help the poor and the
destitute in society. The second message is, we must be
sensitive to the people who are suffering, especially the
poor, and help them out. This will reduce their suffering
and add to our joy and satisfaction.
SYMBOLS
The Leaden Heart
The Happy Prince has a heart made of
lead, which breaks when his beloved
Swallow dies of the cold. At first, this
leaden heart appears to emphasize
the superficiality of the Prince’s
beauty, though it later comes to
symbolize the steadfast nature of love.
The town officials try to melt the heart down and repurpose it
with the rest of the statue, but it refuses to melt. And when at
the end of the story, God asks for the two most precious things
in the city to be brought to him, the leaden heart, although
broken, ends up being one of them. The leaden heart thus
ultimately represents both the steadfastness of true love and
the value of compassion.

WORD-MEANINGS

gilded: to covered with something, coating of something esp. gold

hilt: the handle of a weapon or tool, especially a sword, dagger,

or knife

alighted: descended

curious: strange

drenched: soaked with water

coarse: rough

seamstress: a woman who makes a

living by sewing
sword hilt: the handle of the sword

pedestal: raised platform

mast: sail of the ship

sank: drown but here it means the boy

in going to sleep

prospect: thought of something

garret: small dark room at the top of

the house

withered: worn out

violet: kind of flower

faint: weak

grate: fireplace

darted: pushed himself inside

appreciate: to praise someone

harbour: sea port

swooped: fly very low

shabby: untidy

proclamation: order, rule

furnace: is a fire place where metal is

melted

overseer: supervisor

foundry: workshop for casting metals

CHARACTER SKETCHES

The Swallow
The swallow is kind-hearted and polite. En-
route to Egypt for the winter, he wants to
join his companions in the sunny land of
Egypt but agrees to help when the prince
persuades him to stay back and help him.
The swallow agrees to stay for a night to
help the seamstress, but the noble act gives
him deep satisfaction and warmth due to
which he is interested in staying back for
another night. He does not appear as
selfless as the Happy Prince as he repeatedly emphasizes his desire to leave
and enjoy all the beautiful things abroad. He had a compassionate heart and
refused to pluck out the sapphires, for they were the prince’s eyes and when
the prince’s eyes had been given away as charity, the swallow decided to stay
on with the prince although the prince urged him to fly away. He became the
prince’s companion and vividly described the city so that they could heal the
sufferings of the poor collectively. He braved cold and hunger until his last
breath and sacrificed his life for the well-being of humanity The Swallow
comes to love the Prince and deeply imbibed the value of doing good.
The Happy Prince
Once a sheltered prince who led a life of pleasure, the Happy Prince was
turned into a gilded statue upon his death and placed upon a pedestal
overlooking his town. The Prince is described as exceedingly beautiful with
golden skin, sapphires for eyes, and a ruby on his sword-hilt. Although his
external beauty impresses everyone around him, he sees that beauty as only
skin-deep; his true worth lies in his compassion for his townspeople and his
willingness to sacrifice for them. The ‘happiness’ of this name is thus ironic,
as the Prince experienced a false happiness in his previous life of pleasure,
when he was ignorant of the true misery surrounding him. Feeling helpless,
he wept and wished to help those in need. He humbly pleaded with the
Swallow to be his messenger. He had pity in his heart, and he was generous
as he gave away every bit of the wealth that he had. He truly loved the
Swallow and could not bear to be separated from it. When the bird died, the
leaden heart of the prince broke into two which depicts the truth of his love
and his compassionate heart.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Question 1.
Why do the courtiers call the prince
‘the Happy Prince’? Is he really
happy? What does he see all around
him?
Answer: He was a prince when he
was alive. Being a prince, he never
knew sorrow and suffering. So, the
courtiers called him ‘the Happy
Prince’. But he was not happy in real sense as his heart could feel the misery
and pain of the needy. He was grieved when he saw the miserable condition
of people around him.
Question 2.
Why does the Happy Prince send a ruby for the seamstress? What does the
swallow do in the seamstress’ house?
Answer: The seamstress was tired due to overwork. She was so poor that she
could not buy oranges for her sick thirsty son. The Happy Prince was moved
and felt pity for them. So, he sent a ruby for her.
The swallow came to the poor woman’s house and laid the ruby on the table
beside her. The bird fanned the boy’s forehead with wings and flew back to
the Happy Prince.
Question 3.
For whom does the prince send the sapphires and why?
Answer: The prince sent the sapphires for the playwright and the match girl.
The poor playwright was incapable of buying food and firewood. The prince
sent a sapphire for him so that he could finish a play for the director of the
theatre in time. The prince sent the second sapphire for a poor match girl.
Her matches had fallen into the gutter. She was afraid that her father would
beat her for this loss. So, the prince helped her by sending her the second
sapphire.
Question 4.
What does the swallow see when it was flying over the city?
Answer: The swallow saw all categories of people. He found the rich making
merry in their beautiful houses and beggars begging sitting at the gates. He
also saw a group of wandering children who were poverty- stricken.
Question 5.
What are the precious things mentioned in the story? Why are they precious?
Answer: The leaden heart of the Happy Prince and the dead swallow are the
two precious things mentioned in the story. They are precious as they did
kind deeds for the welfare of their townspeople and sacrificed their lives for
the sake of others.
Question 6.
When and how did the Happy Prince realise the true meaning of life? What
did this realisation prompt him to do?
Answer: The Happy Prince had lived a very comfortable life and had not
known any sorrow when he was alive. In fact, sorrow was not allowed to
enter the palace where he lived. Thus, he was called the ‘Happy Prince’ by
his ministers. However, after his death, his gold and jewel-studded statue was
put up on a high column in the city. From there, the Happy Prince, got to see
the pain and miseries of the people. He then realised that ugliness and
sufferings are the true faces of life. He felt that the misery suffered by humans
was the greatest mystery and the plight of – men and women was more
marvellous than the grandeurs of riches. He then started giving away his
riches to the needy and tried to relieve them of the pain of poverty.
Question 7.
The swallow was to fly away to Egypt. Why did he decide to stay on with
the Happy Prince? How did the swallow exhibit the values of unconditional
love and devotion?
Answer: The swallow happened to stop by at the city where the statue of the
Happy Prince was placed. It was sheer chance that he took shelter at the feet
of the statue for just one night on his way to Egypt, but stayed back till his
last breath because he was moved by the Prince’s selfless love, kindness and
spirit of self-sacrifice. This act of the swallow shows the qualities of
compassion, understanding and helpfulness in his character.
He helped the Prince by becoming his messenger and carrying the jewels
from the statue to the seamstress, the playwright, and the match girl. He
became a constant companion to the Prince after both the sapphires had been
plucked out from his eye sockets. The swallow loved the Prince
unconditionally and became his eyes by flying over the city and reporting the
hardships and miseries of the people. He would faithfully follow all the
orders of the Prince and carry the gold leaves from the statue and give them
to the needy. Thus, the good values of the swallow helped him to remain a
loving companion to the Prince till cold and hunger snatched away his life.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

(for recapitulation and self-assessment)
Q1- Who is the writer of ‘The Happy Prince’?
A) Khushwant Singh
B) Coates Kinney
C) Oscar Wilde
D) Ruskin Bond

Q2- Why was the Prince called happy?

A) because he never cried
B) because he was very lucky
C) because he had everything
D) because he always smiled and was living in the palace of happiness

Q3- What was done after the Prince's death?

A) His statue was made
B) he was forgotten
C) people cried
D) people became corrupt

Q4- Whom did the Happy Prince send the Ruby to?
A) Seamstress- a poor woman
B) the playwright
C) the match girl
D) Swallow

Q5- What made the Seamstress's child feel relaxed?

A) Ruby
B) Happy Prince
C) Swallow
D) Fanning by the Swallow

Q6- Whom did the Prince send the sapphires to?

A) a matchgirl and a young writer across the city
B) a poor lady
C) a beggar
D) none

Q7- Why did Happy Prince send the sapphire to a young writer and the
matchgirl?
A) to send hope and make them happy
B) to show them power
C) to surprise them D) to help them
Q8- What did the swallow notice while flying over the city?
A) plight of the poor and greed of the rich
B) many people and their plight
C) many poor people
D) many waste things

Q9- What made Happy Prince blind?

A) giving away two sapphires
B) an arrow
C) shooting guns
D) stone pelting

Q10- Why was the Swallow not ready to move to Egypt?

A) Because the Happy Prince became blind
B) Because of kindness of the Happy Prince
C) Because the Happy Prince would be alone
D) None

Q11- What moved Swallow's heart?

A) Happy Prince
B) Happy Prince's kindness
C) Happy Prince's assets
D) All

Q12- Why did Happy Prince give away all his assets?
A) to eradicate misery and sorrow from his city
B) to show his power
C) to show his richness
D) None

Q13- Name the most precious things in the story that the angel took to
give to God.
A) leaden heart of Happy Prince and the dead Swallow
B) Prince and his assets
C) Ruby, sword and sapphires D) All
Q14- Why were Prince and the Swallow so precious?
A) because of their kindness and selflessness
B) because of their services
C) because they had many possessions
D) they were rich

Q15- What did the Prince do to make the people of his city happy?
A) told them stories
B) gave away all his precious gems and stones
C) talked to people
D) made Swallow fly here and there

Q16- What did Swallow do to be with Happy Prince?

A) helped him flying here and there
B) stopped flying to distant places
C) sacrificed his trip to Egypt
D) All

Q17- What did the Swallow become to help the Prince?

A) His messenger
B) His friend
C) His Minister
D) His Assistant

Q18- Where did the Swallow die?

A) in the city
B) under the fountain
C) at the feet of the Statue
D) in a house

Q19- Why did the Swallow die?

A) Because of the Prince
B) Because of people's behaviour
C) because of growing cold
D) All
Q20- What happens when the Swallow dies?
A) Leaden Heart of the Prince was broken into two pieces
B) Prince cried
C) Prince broke
D) People cried

Answer the following questions in 40-50 words: (to be written

in the English notebook)
1.Why did the Happy Prince want the swallow to stay with him?
2. What made the statue of the Happy Prince cry?
3. What happened to the leaden heart of the Happy Prince after it was
thrown away?
4. Try to pen a few words in verse…on any one of the themes highlighted
in the story.