3 things about the Happy Prince.Thursday, July 19, 2007
Link:http://fiction.eserver.org/short/happy_prince.html
upon prompting from amphi, i decided to read up the story of the happy prince, which happened to be sitting comfortably in the personal message window of his MSN nickname. at first, it appeared as being no different from a typical fictional story. there is god, prince in shiny gold, happy people and sad people; popular elements of a child's favorite storybook. but the long, shaky bus-ride home became a rather thought-provoking session. The plot of Happy Prince was not as simple as it appeared to be, but there are rather several interesting points to ponder over. and on that same journey, i began to slowly think about it.
1. "Ah! but we have, in our dreams."
i am sure everyone have hopes and dreams. some dream to be the next billionaire to appear on the Forbes magazine, the next Singapore idol or campus superstar, the next miss Singapore. there is always this ideal standard that we are working towards, or trying to emulate. but try as we might, we rarely succeed. this give rise to some of the common phrase used to address dreams; "dreams are for weaklings" because tough macho man go all out for what they desire and not cower in their dreams. "dreams never come true" because dreams are supposed to be impossible to achieve. There is a fine line between targets and dreams and the mathematician, operating on logic and rationale (they support a theory through providing a proof) clearly understands this point. and if you do believe in logic and rationale, then why dream? thus the fictional story, as i intepret it, poses the essential question of why one clings on to dreams, hoping for it to come true, even when logic and rationale indicates otherwise. ah, what an intellectually stimulating thought on a "shagged bus" home.
2. "I lived in the palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter." and "they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city"
we have a happy prince as a main character who only felt happiness. because he was unaware of the unhappiness happening around him, he only experienced joy and bliss. he was living a small bubble of heaven, and even though there was unhappiness around him, it didn't affect him. but look at what happened to him when he knew the truth. the happy prince was no more. he lost his identity and perhaps the most important thing of all. because of his curse/blessing to see the unhappy events happening everyday, he became affected by the truth and obliged to help out. along comes the little swallow with a big heart. the swallow too, becomes affected by the truth and with each passing day, they become more and more depressed. clearly, living in our own bubble of bliss seems to spare one from the misery and pain outside. if given the choice, would we prefer to live in that bubble or to know the truth? i couldn't give myself a convincing answer.
3. ‘Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.’
even when the prince turns blind, he still wanted to know the truth happening around him. yes, it would give him even more pain but he wanted to help everyone. and the question which i asked myself hard was what should the swallow have done? telling the truth led to the eventual haggard nature of the happy prince. if the swallow was to hide away the unhappiness, the happy prince would probably be able retain his own identity and his own happiness. so did the swallow do the right thing? was telling the truth the right thing? in the end, the prince and the swallow died, ending their friendship. the happy prince turned from a golden statue with ruby and sapphire to something of past memory. the swallow searching for happiness, eventually died from loneliness and cold. was the truth worth it??
