The Happy Prince: A reflection of the poverty in the XIXth century

Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer, dramaturge and poet. He was born in October 16th, 1854. He was one of the biggest playwrights of his time, known for his wit and genius, son of the surgeon William Wills-Wilde and the writer Joana Elgee. His studies performed Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, at Trinity College Dublin and then at Magdalen College, Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry. He married Constance Lloyd in 1884 and in 1888 he wrote a story book called "The happy prince".

This famous story is about the happy prince, who was a very admired statue in the middle of a city. One day he met a little swallow who was flying to Egypt and he asked her if she could give to the poor people valuable parts of him to help them. For the winter the little swallow died in the feets of the statue because she couldn't stand the cold. When the happy prince was only metal, the mayor took the decision to remove the statue of the park where he was with the little swallow. An angel dropped from the sky where God told him that he wants the two most beautiful things of the city and the angel took the leaden heart of the happy prince and the little swallow.

In the story of the happy prince it’s possible to appreciate a social problem which occurs in the whole city: the poverty of the average citizens. It’s not a secret that in the epoch when this story was written, the context of the author was pretty similar. With the apogee of the Industrial revolution, the poverty became in a common characteristic of the population, giving way to the birth of the proletariat.

It is shown common problems of poor people in our society. The first affected in the story was the dress-maker who had to finish a dress, but she was starving and sleepy and also with an ill son. The second character, presented in the tale is a poet. His work was finish a play, but with the cold of his house he couldn’t finish it. In these times the houses were made of bad materials facilitating ills and unhappiness. The last character in the story is a little girl who send matches in the street to bring some money to her home. This shows the cruel reality of child work back then.

Through this characters, Oscar Wilde spoke about the social problems which occurred every day in the middle of an historical worldwide revolution. He wanted represent the social inequality of those days and he did it with one of his best pieces, known as “The Happy Prince”.