"The Devoted Friend" belongs to a collection called The Happy Prince and Other Tales. The reader thereby knows that Wilde classified the short story as a "tale." While it contains elements both of a fable and a fairy tale, the short story also subverts both of these genres. This makes it possible to read the story as a fairy tale, a fable, and a satire all at once.
Part of the challenge of nailing down the genre comes from Wilde's use of a frame story. The story consists of two different narratives with slightly differing features, and each aspect gives the story its own kind of genre. The outer narrative, which opens the story, follows a few of the primary conventions associated with fables, including talking animals and the development of a moral lesson. The inner narrative, which a character within the frame story recounts, feels more like a fairy tale or folk tale: it begins with the words "once upon a time," it's recounted orally in a group setting, it shows an ordinary person facing great challenges, and it features a clear villain.
At the same time, the frame story challenges the fable classification. Firstly, the lessons taught by fables tend to come from the actions of characters that remain unaware of the fact that they are being used as an example to teach a lesson. In this story, however, the Linnet is aware of this didactic element: he actively sets out to teach a lesson by telling a story. Contrary to the fable tradition, the Linnet does not teach through actions, but through words.
Furthermore, the resolution and moral lesson in the story are more ambiguous than normally tends to be the case. In Aesop's fables, the resolution of the conflict is usually followed by a maxim that sums up the intended moral lesson very explicitly. Not only is the lesson in Wilde's story more ambiguous than in the Aesopic tradition, but it even edges into the territory of paradox: the moral of the story appears to be that people should be cautious about accepting morals. "The Devoted Friend" does not end with a maxim but rather with the narrator's first-person expression of a vague opinion. This final interjection complicates the reader's understanding of the story's point. The whole point of a fable is supposedly to share a moral, but the final sentence of the story disparages the presence of explicit morals in stories.
Similarly, the inner story challenges the fairy tale or folk tale genre. Perhaps most importantly, evil prevails in the end. In a more traditional fairy tale, Hans could have been expected to overcome the Miller's exploitation and save himself. Instead, the story follows him to his senseless death, and the evil force that causes it remains unchanged and both as harmful and powerful as ever. Additionally, fairy tales usually involve a supernatural aspect. The story about Hans lacks elements of magic and the fantastical.
Wilde's mixing of genre conventions and subversion of genre expectations gives the story a satirical edge. He plays with the reader's expectations, intentionally making the story feel at once familiar and difficult to place. Manifesting a strong grasp of these genres and their individual forms of storytelling, he seeks to expose the oversimplification at play in more traditional fables, fairytales, and folk tales.
