While religion is not entirely unique to Oscar Wilde’s
stories, compared to the other European fairy tales we’ve read, religion (or in
this case specifically, Christianity) has never been featured quite so
heavy-handedly before. Sure, Gretel pushed the “godless witch” into the oven,
but “The Selfish Giant” is the first tale I’ve read so far to feature a
character who is almost literally Jesus.
It’s possible to point to other tales and say they have Christ-like qualities,
but those characters don’t disappear and later reappear with nail wounds on their hands and feet and take
a character to their garden, “which is Paradise” (334). And none of the
other stories featured the literal Christian God, either. Again, we’ve seem
some hints of Christianity in other tales. But it’s much more prominent in
Wilde’s stories.
Another thing nearly unique to Wilde are the endings. Most
of the stories we’ve read have ended happily—for the protagonist, anyway. (If
you’re evil, you’re out of luck). There are exceptions to this, however. “Bluebeard’s
Egg” is special in that it ends on a neutral but uncertain note, with no real
conclusion. But several of the Beauty and the Beast tales end sadly, usually
with death: specifically “Urashima the Fisherman” (which could arguably be a
legend and not a fairy tale, but I’m counting it) and “The Swan Maiden”. (“The
Dog Bride” also ends with the death of a non-villain, but he’s not the
protagonist either so I’m just gonna ignore that one.) Similarly, all three of Wilde’s
stories end with the death of the main character(s). I hesitate to call all of these
endings sad, however, because while “The Selfish Giant” ends with the death of the
giant and “The Happy Prince” ends with the death of the swallow and the prince,
they then go spend eternal life in heaven (considered a good thing). It doesn’t
matter what your religion is or isn’t, that’s just how the stories end. But “The
Nightingale and the Rose” is just sad all around, though; I won’t hesitate to
call that story a tragic tale—which something we usually don’t see in fairy
tales, but not unique to Wilde.
One thing completely unique to the stories, though, is the
fact that (two separate times!) there’s a bird who loves a human (or statue of
a human, I guess), and this bird is not and was never a human. It’s kind of
like Beauty and the Beast stories, where we have some almost-bestiality, although
it doesn’t count because the animals are actually people under curses or what
have you. (Or, the person becomes an animal, in the case of the “Tiger Bride”).
There’s still no bestiality in Wilde’s stories cause the student is completely
unaware of the nightingale and the Happy Prince is just a statue, but it’s
different because the birds are actually just birds.
