In “The Remarkable Rocket,” Wilde is satirizing upper-class European society in the late 1800s, specifically the way that members of this high society saw themselves as more important than they actually were. Wilde’s satire comes across best in his depictions of the King and the Rocket, both of whom are caught in the delusion that they are gifted (or “remarkable”) when they are, in reality, less gifted or capable than others. The King, for example, believes he is an excellent flute player when he cannot play a single song, and the Rocket believes he is an exemplary firework when he is the only firework incapable of going off during the Prince's wedding festivities.
The following passage captures the distinctly upper-class way that the Rocket cites his parentage as one of the reasons that he is so “remarkable”:
“I am a very remarkable Rocket, and come of remarkable parents. My mother was the most celebrated Catherine Wheel of her day, and was renowned for her graceful dancing […] My father was a Rocket like myself, and of French extraction. He flew so high that the people were afraid that he would never come down again. He did, though, for he was of a kindly disposition, and he made a most brilliant descent in a shower of golden rain.”
Here, Wilde satirizes the way that European high society people often believed themselves superior for having been born into particular families, with the Rocket noting his mother was “the most celebrated Catherine Wheel of her day” and his father—who was “of French extraction”—flew higher and exploded more brightly than other fireworks. In having a (typically) inanimate object make these sorts of claims, Wilde is highlighting the absurdity of humans doing the same.
