Symbol - The Happy Prince
A clear and easily recognizable symbol is that of the happy prince, from the story of the same title. He is covered in gold and his finishings, such as his eyes, are made from precious stones. He states that he was once always happy, hence his name, but now that he sees all the suffering in the city that he was once ignorant of, he is miserable, especially because he is made of such extravagant materials, that if distributed, would aid the poverty-stricken people. Thus, the prince could be seen as a symbol of unnecessarily lavish public amenities, whose cost could have gone towards helping the poverty issues instead. This was a relevant problem in Wilde’s time, due to the extravagance of Prince George Regent in the previous Georgian period, in which he put the country much in debt with his hedonistic public architecture, while the people were starving. However, due to the fact that the happy prince was a prince in his past life, he could also be a symbol of the gentry, who hoarded wealth and created a large discrepancy between the socioeconomic classes in Victorian times.
Motif - Pomegranates
Pomegranates are a frequent motif in Wilde’s stories; they are often used in descriptions, such as ‘the pomegranates split and cracked with the heat, and showed their bleeding red hearts’, ‘we took the ripe pomegranates from the trees, and brake them and drank their sweet juices’, and ‘pearls and pomegranates cannot buy [love]’. Through his decadent and flowery prose, he uses pomegranates as a recurring image of lavishness. However, due to his classical background, his use of pomegranates as a motif could also represent something more meaningful, as in Greek mythology, pomegranates are the food of the dead, and eating them causes one to be intrinsically connected with the underworld. Many of the stories feature death; in ‘The Happy Prince’, the swallow and the prince die, in ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’, the nightingale dies, in ‘The Selfish Giant’, the giant dies, and in ‘The Canterville Ghost’, the ghost dies. These deaths are portrayed in a melancholy instead of tragic light, and are often very poetic in nature; for example, the giant dies surrounded by blossoms in his beautiful garden. Thus, by using the motif of pomegranates throughout these death-ridden stories, the reader associates the beauty of said fruit with this death, making the deaths less tragic and lending a strange beauty to them, too.
Allegory - The Selfish Giant
The story of ‘The Selfish Giant’ is an allegory for the privatization of land, and the unwillingness of the wealthy to share this wealth with the public. In the story, the giant comes back from a visit to his friend, and finds children playing in his garden. Enraged by this, the giant puts up a sign that says ‘trespassers will be prosecuted’ and doesn’t allow the children to enter, wanting the land for only himself. Due to the large influence of the gentry in the Victorian times, having large estates occupied by only one or two people was very common, and the giant’s situation mirrors this. In the story, this exclusive land ownership creates perpetual winter in the garden, and spring only returns when the children sneak in, and the giant decides to get rid of the sign and restrictions. This could be a veil for Wilde’s socialist beliefs, as it pushes the idea that things were better when the giant shared his garden instead of having it all to himself, the reader could be led to think that things would be better if these large estates could be accessed by the public, thus meaning more people than just the owners could benefit from it.
Symbol - the young king's items
In The Young King, the king finds out about the human rights violations occurring to create his fine garments and jewels, and the suffering that this opulence is causing to the poor. He sees, in a dream, his robe being woven by miserable workers in terrible conditions, a diver dying to get his pearls, and men mining desperately to find his rubies. Therefore the robe, scepter, and crown are all symbols of the reckless opulence displayed by royals; opulence at the price of suffering to the poor. When the king shuns these items and refuses to wear them, the reader is shown that he is rejecting this tradition, rejecting both the typical royal luxuriance and the near-slavery of the poor to create this luxuriance. Additionally, when he creates his own items from a sheepskin cloak, a shepherd’s staff, and a crown of briar, these items, in their imitation of the typical robe, scepter, and crown, serve as symbols for his new vision of royalty; of a king that is humble and cares for the people first.
Allegory - The Remarkable Rocket
The rocket in ‘The Remarkable Rocket’ serves as an allegory for the supposedly intellectual upper class in the Victorian times. The rocket believes he is superior to all the other fireworks, speaking lowly of them and very highly of himself. His manner of speech is exaggeratedly aristocratic, and he expresses his opinions, especially political ones, openly and as if they are the only correct ones to have. Due to his manner of speaking and behaving, the allusions he makes to Victorian society, and the use of the other fireworks to represent everyday people, the reader can draw parallels between the rocket and the real-life people with his ideologies, exaggerated as they are. Additionally, Wilde uses this allegory to mock the upper class: the rocket makes himself wet by crying and therefore doesn’t go off, and when he finally manages to it is when it is very bright and nobody sees him. This shows the idea that despite his talk, it was the lowly, ordinary rockets that actually created the firework display, and that in his own pride in showing off his ‘special’ ability of crying, he ended up not contributing to the show. This could perhaps be suggesting the fact that despite the upper-class gentry thinking very highly of themselves, it was the lower, working-class people that actually kept society running and contributed the most.
