Climax
- Swallow and Happy Prince sacrifice and help others
Exposition
Denouement
- Town councillors talk about the statue
- Story of the Happy Prince is told
- Swallow is introduced
- Story of Swallow and Reed
- Swallow arrives in town
- They both sacrificed themselves
- God wanted the most precious things
--> Swallow and Happy Prince
- They live happily ever after in God's garden
A city in Ireland
Complication
- Guilt (Happy Prince)
- Cold (Swallow)
Late 19th century
The Theme
Beauty on the outside = just a show
--> Real beauty: love and sacrifice
Love & sacrifice are saving forces
Gap between the rich and the poor
all kinds of love should be celebrated & must continue forever
Dialogue
Language
- Sad conversations: weeping, crying...
- The Happy Prince and the Swallow
- The Swallow and Reed
- The Swallow and his friends
- Conversations about the rich & the poor
- "Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow"
Story
- No alliteration, rhyme or assonance
--> only short ones in the conversations
- Emotional undertone in words, adjectives...
The Happy Prince
- Statue made of gold and diamonds
- Stands on tower
- Happy: He was happy his whole life
- On tower he saw misery for 1st time
- Stream of consciousness --> sacrifices
Supporting characters
- Town concillors
- Sensible mother
- Swallow's friends
- Poor children
- ...
≠ limited cast
Swallow
Main characters
- Love and empathy --> Happy Prince
- Selfish
- Learns what it is to sacrifice
Method of narration
- Narrator outside the story
- actions of the characters
- look of the characters
- feelings of the characters
--> panoramic view
- Anonymous omniscient narrator
--> describing events with adverbs
--> "The Picture of Dorian Grey
--> undertone in stories
Oscar Wilde
The Happy Prince