Happiness Found in Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde Essay

roughly heroism deals with forwarding of virtue and reproach of vice. Sloughing off from such a hackneyed, yet wide used frame of thought, the novel The knowing Prince (1888) by Oscar Wilde connects heroism with compassion. With a subconscious reminiscent amongst courage and hero, compassion is generally not a primary association with a upstanding image of a hero. Oscar Wilde however, through utilization of the able prince as a mechanism, conveys the idea of compassion and surrender which consists of happiness and kayo under a plot of heroism.The compassion felt by the Happy Prince open fire be distinguished in two levels of analysis on him egotism and on the shortsighted. The Happy Prince, once a real prince who lived within absolute extravagance, had a life far from poverty, hunger or servility. Upon encountering the inferior truth of civilian faces after becoming a statue, the Happy Prince expresses his compassion on himself by saying My courtiers called me the Happy Pr ince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. (5)This distinction indicates the realization of the Happy Prince on the digression between aesthetic happiness and materialistic pleasure. It also foreshadows the displacement of the Happy Princes compassion from his take in past self to the poor, which causes heroic action by the Happy Prince. The jewels sent by the Happy Prince to the poor in the novel are not just simple sapphires or gold. Rather, they are true jewels resulted from self compassion.Such open-mindedness of the Happy Prince allows him to be penitent for his past misdeeds and sacrifice himself to supplement such faults, which resulted in promotion of the common good. History tells us that those who are titled as leaders sacrifice themselves for others. Regardless of how much(prenominal) sacrifice they burden, all leaders have a certain extent of private loss to reelect common welfare. Similarly, the story The Happy Prince also depicts heroism based on sacri fice.In the novel, the Happy Prince, having beauty as a single reason for its production, sacrifices himself to the non haves on the streets by distributing his jewels through the help of a sparrow. Since the advise for its existence diminishes, the mayor of the city eventually destroys the statue of the Happy Prince. The point Oscar Wilde makes at this part is that action for others with seriousness and truthfulness overwhelms the loss one gets through such action.As Erich Fromm, a German philosopher wrote in his book, To check or To Be, property without purpose loses the value of it and absence with a purpose is more cute than its presence. Having firm belief on his action, the Happy Prince was able to practice his heroism. Mother Theresa said she lived a happy life. Her happy life, Mother Theresa said, seems to overlap with the life the Happy Prince lived as a statue. They both gave everything they had for others and realize happiness as exchange. Compassion and sacrifice ma y be a true key to commencement a treasure box full of happiness and beauty.