Most heroism deals with promotion of virtue and reproach of vice.

Sloughing
off from such a hackneyed, yet widely used frame of thought, the novel ‘The Happy
Prince’ (1888) by Oscar Wilde connects heroism with compassion. With a
subconscious reminiscent between ‘courage’ and ‘hero’, compassion is generally not
a primary association with a strong image of a hero. Oscar Wilde however, through
utilization of ‘the happy prince’ as a mechanism, conveys the idea of compassion and
sacrifice which consists of happiness and beauty under a plot of heroism. The
compassion felt by the Happy Prince can be distinguished in two levels of analysis: on
himself and on the poor. The Happy Prince, once a real prince who lived within
absolute extravagance, had a life far from poverty, hunger or servility. Upon
encountering the inferior reality of civilian faces after becoming a statue, the Happy
Prince expresses his compassion on himself by saying: “My courtiers called me the
Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness.” (5)This distinction
indicates the realization of the Happy Prince on the difference between aesthetic
happiness and materialistic pleasure. It also foreshadows the displacement of the
Happy Prince’s compassion from his own past self to the poor, which causes heroic
action by the Happy Prince. The jewels sent by the Happy Prince to the poor in the
novel are not just simple sapphires or gold. Rather, they are ‘true’ jewels resulted
from self compassion. Such open-mindedness of the Happy Prince allows him to be
penitent for his past misdeeds and sacrifice himself to supplement such faults, which
resulted in promotion of the common good. History tells us that those who are titled
as ‘leaders’ sacrifice themselves for others. Regardless of how much sacrifice they
burden, all leaders have a certain extent of private loss to yield common welfare.
Similarly, the story ‘The Happy Prince’ also depicts heroism based on sacrifice.
Collection of children’s stories written in 1888, dealing primarily with love
and selfishness. These stories are generally sad, with a moralistic message. The
collection includes: The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish
Giant, The Devoted Friend, and The Remarkable Rocket.
In Oscar Wilde's works always convey impressions / criticisms of the order
and condition of the people in his time who strangely still relevant to current
conditions.
The stories are written in an almost liturgical style. They're beautiful, they're
dry, they're preachy, and they’re overly emotionally charged. They're about charity
and compassion and love and selflessness, and they're just so heavy-handed about it.
The Happy Prince is actually quite beautiful, and reads to me like something
out of Arabian Nights. I was surprised by the tone and content, because it's so starkly
fixed on compassion and charity, morals and values I don't normally associate with
Wilde, and the end is dramatic and Biblical, but not so much as to make me roll my
eyes. It was acceptable.
The Nightingale and the Rose was terrible. And far too realistic. And also
justified all the side-eyes I’ve always given the idea of love. It’s about love and
sacrifices made me sad too.