The Happy Prince

Textbook-Moments • THE HAPPY
Chapter-The Happy
Prince
Date•12/01/2022 PRINCE
Rohit B:- 9E39
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About The Story

The Happy Prince is a beautiful story written by Oscar Wilde. It is the tale of a
sculpture of the Happy Prince that was covered with gold leaves and precious gems.
The statue was placed at a height such that it overlooked the city from the top. One
fine day, a swallow bird took shelter under the sculpture as he was flying to Egypt. He
found out that the Happy Prince was not happy indeed, but was rather miserable. So,
the bird asked the Prince the reason for his unhappiness. The Prince told him that
when he was alive, he used to stay happy in his palace. He stayed uninformed of his
people during his lifetime. When he died, his statue was erected high on a tall
column over the city. He became sad when he started noticing the misery and
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Characters In This Story

1. Prince
2. The Swallow
3. Seamstress
4. Playwright
5. Match Girl
6. Mayor
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SUMMARY
The Happy Prince was a beautiful statue. One day a

little swallow stayed between the feet of the Happy
Prince. A large drop of water fell on the swallow when
he got ready to go to sleep. The swallow learnt that
these were the tears falling from the Happy Prince’s
eyes. The Happy Prince told him about the misery
around him. The swallow made up his mind to stay
there.
The Happy Prince gave a ruby for a poor seamstress.
He gave a sapphire for a playwright and another
sapphire for a match girl. The swallow carried out the
prince’s wishes. He also plucked out the gold leaves
from the statue and gave it to the poor. He decided to
go to Egypt as desired by the Happy Prince. The bird
said that he was leaving for the House of Death. And
he fell down dead at the Prince’s feet. Just then Prince’s
leaden heart cracked into two parts because of hard
frost. The next morning, the Mayor ordered it to be
taken down and melted in a furnace. The broken lead
heart, however, did not melt. So it was thrown on a
heap of dust. The dead bird was also lying there. In
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Heaven, God asked one of the Angels, to bring him two

most precious things from the city. The Angel carried
away the broken heart and the dead bird.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Oscar Wilde
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Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November

1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different
forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular
playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered
for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and
the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for
consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials",
[1]imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46. No name
is more inextricably bound to the aesthetic movement of the 1880s and
1890s in England than that of Oscar Wilde. This connection results as
much from the lurid details of his life as from his considerable
contributions to English literature. His lasting literary fame resides
primarily in four or five plays, one of which—The Importance of Being
Earnest, first produced in 1895—is a classic of comic theater. His only
novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), is flawed as a work of art, but
gained him much of his notoriety. This book gives a particularly 1890s
perspective on the timeless theme of sin and punishment. Wilde published
a volume of poems early in his career as a writer. Some of these poems
were successful, but his only enduring work in this genre is The Ballad of
Reading Gaol (1896). On a curious but productive tangent to his more
serious work, Wilde produced two volumes of fairy tales that are
delightful in themselves and provide insight into some of his serious social
and artistic concerns. His significant literary contributions are rounded off
by his critical essays, most notably in Intentions (1891), and his long soul-
searching letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, De Profundis, written in 1897
from Reading Gaol
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Textbook-Moments • THE HAPPY

About The Story

Characters In This Story

The Happy Prince was a beautiful statue. One day a

Heaven, God asked one of the Angels, to bring him two

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November

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