Economics
A theme promoting socialist economic ethics—especially the concept of redistributing wealth for the good of everyone—runs through many of the stories. Most politically aware is “The Model Millionaire” which specifically attacks the notion that it only takes hard work to succeed in the new capitalist economy of the Industrial Revolution when, ironically, it requires the choice of a redistribution of wealth by a rich older man for a unlucky younger man to marry and pursue success. On the other hand, “The Happy Prince” presents the same basic concept that happiness is not in acquiring wealth, but in using wealth to improve the world around them that they must look at every single day.
Sacrificing for Love
Characters are sacrificing things throughout these stories. “The Fisherman and His Soul” inverts the sacrifice made by the Little Mermaid in the familiar fairy tale so that it is the fisherman who seeks to make a sacrifice in order to live under the water. “The Nightingale and the Rose” likewise takes a fairy tale approach to themes of sacrificing all for love. “The Portrait of W.H.” steps outside the regulated confines of fable and fairy tales to present a deeper and more complex concept of sacrificing for the love of art within a contemporary plot that is also a literary mystery involving Shakespeare.
Character Transformation and Redemption
Working primarily within the fairy tale spectrum of the stories is a thematic thread of the transformation of character. Both “The Happy Prince” and “The Young King” undergo transformations taking them from recognizing the emptiness of materialism to recognizing the value of appreciating the sacrifices made by the poor to keep the rich in opulence. The processes of character development in these two titular characters are not only quite different from each other, but markedly off the beaten path from other stories of this type. “The Star-Child” explores the concept of the redemption of a rotted soul less as a fairy tale than through a more allegorically religious lens, but ultimately shares the same thematic universe.
It's an Ironic World, After All
The single most pervasive theme in these stories is that the world is rich in irony. Whether tossing his readers into the world of fairy tales or dropping them down into the middle of the banal reality of Victorian England, irony slices its way through the plots and narrative to display a world of uncertainty and surprise. The trajectory of the criminal behavior that makes up the plot of “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” is case of one ironic event piled on top of another. The title of “The Sphinx without a Secret” not only turns to ironically not get anywhere close to an actual sphinx but even more ironically is revealed to be the most ordinary and non-mythical character in the entire collection. “The Model Millionaire” proves that irony is not always a negative impact upon lives while “The Fisherman and His Soul” argues that when it is negative, ironic is a real kick to the gut.
