octavia_cade 's review for:

The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

4.0

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This is really an enormously affecting story - I've read it many times, and it never fails to get an emotional reaction. It also never fails to make me side-eye it a little. Like, you couldn't have done this while you were alive, Happy Prince? And for all your compassion for the suffering of the poor, you're quite happy to ask the little bird to suffer in order to compensate for what you never did. Granted, the bird chooses to go along with it - and I think the reason I'm always so affected by this is the bird, because I never feel that sorry for the Happy Prince - so it's not as much of an imposition as it could be, but still. You, and your happy ending (cribbed very heavily from "The Little Mermaid") got off lightly.