Beauty and Morality Theme Analysis

Oscar Wilde was notably committed to aestheticism and the aesthetic movement—associated with the mantra “Art for Art’s sake”—and this theme recurs throughout his literary works. The titular protagonist of “The Happy Prince” is himself a statue meant to decorate the city, and through him, the story explores the relationship between art and usefulness. However, “The Happy Prince” also demonstrates the darker sides of society’s obsession with beauty—that is, the extreme poverty and social inequality required to support decadent lifestyles for those living at the top of society. This turn to morality resonates with Victorian values while still condemning that society for its hypocrisy.

The initial description of the Happy Prince focuses on his aesthetic beauty: he is “gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold,” has eyes of “two bright sapphires,” and on his sword-hilt “a large red ruby glowed.” Although these descriptions focus on his outer beauty, the word “gilded” reveals that such beauty is superficial. Similarly, although the Prince’s name is “happy,” he weeps upon his tall column when the Swallow first meets him; the Prince’s name thus also disguises—or, perhaps, gilds—reality. The Prince goes on to describe to the Swallow his childhood in a palace “where sorrow is not allowed to enter,” where he was carefree because everything was “so beautiful.” They called him the Happy Prince, and he said he was happy “if pleasure be happiness.” True happiness, this quote hints, differs from pleasure, while beauty often hinges on obscuring suffering.

Indeed, the happiness of the Prince’s childhood was the happiness of ignorance. After dying and becoming a statue, he says, “they have set me up here so high I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.” The city, then, only seemed beautiful to the Prince when disguised by high walls—that is, when he couldn’t see the suffering that existed alongside his own pleasure. Beauty, at least in a shallow, physical sense, is thus tied to deceit and even cruel indifference.

Every time the Prince identifies someone living in poverty, meanwhile, the cause of their suffering ties back to some object of beauty. A seamstress living in the poorhouse embroiders “passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen’s maids-of-honour,” while her own little boy lies ill with a fever. Although he wants oranges, his mother “has nothing to give him but river water.” The tragedy of their situation is deepened by the luxury goods she is working so hard to produce—not only will she not be attending any balls herself, but her work to add flowers to this satin gown does not earn enough money to even buy oranges or medicine for her sick son.

Later, a young playwright “is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre” but cannot move from cold—“there is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.” Even the town’s arts and culture are driven by deep social inequalities. Here, as in the Prince’s childhood palace, beauty is built on the backs of poor townspeople yet essentially masks their suffering.

Importantly, Wilde’s story doesn’t disavow beauty altogether. Instead, it critiques the fixation on outer beauty at the expense of compassion and also rejects the equation of such beauty with innate value. When the Prince readily gives up his beauty, in the form of his jewels, to help the poor, he is relieving himself of that which previously brought him such pleasure—and in the process, redistributing some of its power.

Notably, the jewels’ grandeur in and of itself proves less impressive than their simple usefulness. When the playwright finds a sapphire on his desk, for instance, he doesn’t marvel at this item “brought out of India a thousand years ago”; he merely celebrates his work being appreciated. When the match-girl finds a jewel, she says, “What a lovely bit of glass” before running “home laughing.” This emphasizes that, however lovely, the jewel is ultimately nothing more than a trinket; the true value of the jewels lie in their ability to protect the match-girl from her cruel father’s beatings, or to provide the playwright with much needed food, firewood, and moral support to, in turn, produce more beauty himself via his art.

In keeping with this complication of the idea that external beauty connotes inherent worth, it is the ugliest part of the statue—his leaden, broken heart—that leads him to the highest reward. At first, the Town Councillors dismiss the “shabby” statue as “little better than a beggar,” and pull him down, saying “as he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful.” This confirms the overriding opinion among this privileged class of people that outer beauty is what imbues things with value. However, because the Prince’s heart doesn’t “melt in the furnace,” it’s thrown “on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow [is] also lying.”

Though the Happy Prince has lost all outer beauty, and with it all his use and value in some people’s eyes, his heart’s refusal to melt demonstrates a durability and steadfastness that stems from inner goodness. That’s why, when God asks one of his angels for “the two most precious things in the city,” these items turn out to be the dead Swallow and the leaden heart. This conclusion proves that true value and external appearances are not always the same—the most precious things sometimes come disguised as the ugliest.