“The Happy Prince” tells of a royal man who was sheltered from all the world’s cares while he was alive, which led him to believe he was happy. What he had was a life of unspoiled pleasure, so he could not develop a true sense of what happiness meant. Now that his life has ended and he is trapped in statue form, he can see the world around him but cannot independently act upon it. The swallow becomes his emissary, dispensing the material elements of wealth—jewels and gold—that adorn the outside of his statue form. Inside it, his heart will not melt because it is made of lead. In the end, it cracks in two at the moment of the swallow’s death.
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