Oscar Wilde

The story "The Happy Prince" is a moral and social allegory in that it places shallowness vs. altruism; idleness vs. sacrifice; and contempt vs. compassion under the perspective of the one person...

To do a critical review of "The Nightingale and the Rose," start by looking at the themes of the story. Firstly, through the character of the nightingale, Wilde explores the theme of sacrifice. Her...

The Happy Prince. The main character in this story. He used to live a happy life as a prince in the royal palace until he dies. A statue of him is then built and placed on a tall column high above...

Arguably, the moral of "The Nightingale and the Rose" is that true love involves sacrifice and selflessness. Wilde makes this point through his characterization of the nightingale, the bird who...

The story is about the poignance and beauty of making a sacrifice even if it is wasted. In this story, a male student, who spends his time in his books, falls in love with a young woman. She says...

In "The Selfish Giant," Oscar Wilde begins by using figurative language to emphasize the beauty of of the garden, where flowers stand out of the grass "like stars" in the sky. These flowers are...

It is the night before the coronation of the Young King, a boy of sixteen who has only recently become aware of his royal birth, having lived most of his life as a simple shepherd before...

A sad story about undying and altruistic love, "The Nightingale and the Rose" is essentially a parable that reads like a romantic story, and is presented as a fairy tale. In typical Wilde style,...

The nightingale describes the student who needs the red rose for his "true love" as follows: His hair is dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but passion...

In this question, we are asked "to what extent" Wilde's claims are valid. Based on the examples of the readings you provided, it would appear that Wilde's claims are valid only to some extent....

In the short story “The Happy Prince,” Oscar Wilde uses many literary devices to create a fairytale that shows how generosity and compassion can alleviate sadness, illness, and poverty, even in a...

Oscar Wilde's short story "The Happy Prince" is a satire commenting on social class distinctions and the wastefulness and selfishness of the upper class, particularly the nobility. The story...

Oscar Wilde's works include a wide range of nonfiction, plays, a novel, and poems. In these works he expresses a consistent ideological position that art should be independent of morality, and has...

The scene from act 1 in which Lady Bracknell interviews Jack is an excellent example of Oscar Wilde's satire. Just before this scene, Lady Bracknell has discovered that her daughter Gwendolen wants...

"The Selfish Giant" centers around a giant with his garden and the children who enjoy playing in it. The giant, when he returns to find the children in his garden, drives them out and builds a wall...

In Oscar Wilde's text "The Model Millionaire," the charming and penniless Hughie Erskine is madly in love with Laura Merton, the daughter of a retired colonel who finds Hughie congenial but will...

The object of the student's affections is clearly a member of the social elite, otherwise she wouldn't have been invited to the Prince's ball. We're not sure of the student's social background but...

The Prince was looking over the city noticing how deprived he was of the truth: That while he was Prince and rich, the people of lesser birth died of hunger and disease in poverty at the slums....

Oscar Wilde’s story can be interpreted in general terms as promoting generosity as a path to eternal peace, but it is generally understood as a Christian allegory. The narrator presents the Giant...

Figures of speech enhance a piece of literature by using words in ways that go beyond their literal meaning. Wilde uses euphemism in "The Happy Prince." Euphemism means putting something harsh into...

The rising action in the story consists of the swallow helping the the Happy Prince to do good for his people. During his life, the Prince never ventured from his palace and had no idea that the...

In Oscar Wilde's "The Model Millionaire," a young man named Hughie Erskine performs an act of kindness that yields him great reward. Although he is handsome and well-liked, Hughie does not come...

The swallow is a bird who needs to migrate to a warm climate in the winter months. The swallow in this story instead chooses to stay with the Happy Prince in order to fulfill the prince's request...

One of the main themes in The Young King is self-transformation. This young king who lives in opulence and extravagance has an ephiphany through a dream, realizing that the golden and expensive...

The industrial revolution has widened the gap between the rich and the poor like never before in the Victorian era (1830-1900). The literature of the time reflected the growing disparity in the...

If we think about the various social comedies that Wilde wrote, it is clear that one ingredient he added to the form of comedy was the figure of the dandy. The dandy could be defined as a man with...

Rather surprisingly, Oscar Wilde does not use many overt metaphors in "The Happy Prince." He uses a plethora of similes as he describes the settings and characters of the story, but metaphors are...

Cecily Cardew is Jack Worthing's ward. She is young, has inherited a fortune from her deceased parents, and she was left to the care of Jack and her governess, Ms. Prism. Although she has money,...

In "The Sphinx Without a Secret," Wilde explores the theme of love. This is shown from the beginning of the story when the narrator meets with his friend Lord Murchison, a man who is "troubled" by...

Oscar Wilde’s “A Devoted Friend” is an example of a type of story called a “fable.” Fables usually sound like children’s stories because they are meant to instruct or demonstrate a moral, and they...

This seemingly simple story, when examined closely, develops several meaningful themes in regard to human nature, one of them being that of blind selfishness. The student is selfish in that he is...

In short, the title "The Remarkable Rocket" illustrates the self-importance and distorted view of reality that the rocket himself embodies. (He's a plain old rocket, keep in mind, just a stick that...

As a children's story, "The Happy Prince" is indeed meant to be read on the surface level and is, just as it seems, a story entirely about love and humanity. The beginning of the story shows the...

The symbolism of color is the same across the board in the Western culture, so you may see that, whether it is applied to a fan or to a ribbon, dress, or curtain, the color is what is sending out...

Oscar Wilde was known for having a flamboyant lifestyle because he used his wit and intelligence to pursue a life of pleasure. He adopted a carefully-crafted public reputation which included an...

"The Nightingale and the Rose" was written by Oscar Wilde, an Irish author of the 19th century. In the story, the young man is identified only as a student. He is a good student, being very well...

I believe the phrase that best describes Hughie Erskine in the first paragraph of "The Model Millionaire" is he had every accomplishment except that of making money. This best describes Hughie...

In "The Nightingale and the Rose," Wilde deals with the principal theme of what constitutes true love. To find this out, he compares and contrasts two types of love. In the first, Wilde presents...

SIMILES: Comparisons that use the word "like" or "as." a) "The sledge was shaped like a great golden swan..." b) "she was as pale as the Snow Palace in which she had always lived." c) "'"She is...

The nightingale describes the young student as a "true lover", and admires him for : His hair is dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made...

Three adjectives to describe "The Young Prince" by Oscar Wilde are: 1. Repentant (because he now sees how the town lived in the times when he was alive and loaded with everything while his subjects...

The city in which the story is set gives the impression of being a place where material wealth is considered all-important. The opulent statue of the Happy Prince, with its gold leaf and precious...

In The Importance of Being Earnest, philanthropy is mentioned once: when Gwendolen Fairfax goes to the country estate of Jack Worthing, who she believes is really called Ernest, because she wants...

While we generally associate Wilde with witty comedies of manners, this story, despite its dark and ironic ending, is heartfelt and sincere. My view is that Wilde believed in true love and was...

When the nightingale hears the boy speaking of his need for a red rose, she immediately decides to help him. First of all, she flies to the centre of the grass plot to a rose tree. She asks the...

The other answer to this question does a great job of describing the foundations of manipulation as a theme in Dorian Gray, illustrating how Lord Henry manipulates Dorian, who in turn manipulates...

Reading this poem twice is a good idea. If you have no familiarity with the Bible, then the story may not come as easily. This is the difficulty with allusions: if someone is unfamiliar with what...

To determine the time period and location of Wilde's "The Young King," the reader has to look at context clues. Various locations are mentioned for trading—Egypt, Persia, India, and Italy—so these...

Oscar Wilde uses his short story "The Nightingale and the Rose" to satirize Romanticism. Literature of the Romantic period focused on the individual and placed value in intense emotions above...

In Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince,” the Swallow initially shares superficial relationships with other characters; through the course of the short story, however, the bird develops a deeper, more...