Oscar wilde's short story "the happy prince" highlights the importance of friendship.comment on this statement with reference to the relationship between the characters of the happy prince and the swallow.
Answers
Answer:
when the prince post his eye the bird first flew and came back to become his eye. when the prince died the bird too died with him
Answer:
The friendship between the swallow and the Happy Prince suggests that friendship is important because it can be a source of love and companionship. The Happy Prince is sad because he can see all of the poverty and misery in the city, and the swallow is lonely because all of his friends have flown away, and because the reed he was in love with didn't want to go away with him. The swallow helps the Happy Prince to deal with his sadness, and the Happy Prince, in return, offers companionship to the swallow.
The story also shows that sacrifice is sometimes important in friendship. The swallow agrees to stay and help the Happy Prince rather than fly away to join his friends. After the snow comes, the swallow grows "colder and colder," and eventually he dies at the feet of the Happy Prince. The swallow thus makes the ultimate sacrifice as a consequence of wanting to stay in the cold climate to help his friend, when he could have chosen to fly away to a warmer climate instead.
When the swallow dies, the Happy Prince's heart "snap(s) right in two." The implication is that it was only the love he had for the swallow that was keeping him alive. The Happy Prince's friendship with the swallow was important because it sustained him and gave him a reason to go on living, even though the world around him was full of so much misery.
At the end of the story, God asks two of his angels to bring him "the two most precious things in the city." The angels take to God the heart of the Happy Prince and the body of the dead swallow. God agrees that these are indeed the two "most precious things." They are precious because of the friendship that existed between them, and because that friendship was the source of so much love.