Oscar Wilde

Prior to this week’s class about Oscar Wilde, I had never read anything by the famous author (I had thought I did, but I was wrong). These stories are quite different than any other type of story analyzed thus far- and we’ve looked at a variety of stories from European, to Native American. But the tales from Jewish religion are the ones that come closest to the tales of Wilde. It’s important to note, personally, I was not raised Christian, and so many of the symbolism very much “flew over my head” so to speak. But I found the sacrificial elements in all the stories to be quite interesting.

Most so in “The Happy Prince”, where the spirit of the Prince made great strides to save his people. I also found the end scene with the Mayor arguing about whom the statue should be made after next to be poignant- with some people, once the history is gone, they focus on which of the people has done the most charity work, but in a selfish competition, not done out of the goodness of a heart. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story, as I felt that it was something that could easily be related to the modern society. 

As stated before, what makes these stories different from those of any of the other European stories we have read is the element of religion in combination with sacrifice. Many of the tales of Judaism, of course, discuss the key role of religion when miracles occur, and the idea of having faith in a higher power- just as with “The Selfish Giant”.