The Star Child (Part 2)

1.

Major and minor characters:

 Major character: The Star Child

- A handsome boy who for the first ten years of his life believes
that he is truly the son of a star.
- He becomes vain, arrogant and cruel.
- When his real mother, a beggar woman, comes to the village
where he lives, he mocks her for her ugliness.
- As punishment for his cruelty, he becomes monstrously ugly
himself.
- He remains so until he shows kindness to others, even at the risk
of his own life.

 Minor character:
* The Woodcutter and wife
- They are poor and have a lot of children.
-
1. Write about The Star Child (Part 2) with regard to its
major and minor characters, its setting, its plot, its
theme.
a. Major and minor characters:
 PROTAGONIST < The Star Child> :
- A handsome boy who for the first ten years of hi
believes that he is truly the son of a star.
- He becomes vain, arrogant and cruel.
- When his real mother, a beggar woman, comes
the village where he lives, he mocks her for her
ugliness.
- As punishment for his cruelty, he becomes
monstrously ugly himself.
- He remains so until he shows kindness to others,
even at the risk of his own life.
 Minor character: * The Woodcutter and wife
- They are poor and have a lot of children.
- The kind Woodcutter found and brought th
child home.
- They brought up the Star-Child and treated
impartially.
*Beggar- woman:
- She is a beggar woman but actually she is t
queen and the real mother of the Star- Chil
- Her son was stolen 10 years earlier and she
never stopped looking for him.
- She recognizes that he is her son but he do
not accept her
- The mother suffers a lot for this thing but i
end the boy repents and she forgives him.
*The Magician:
- An old and evil-visaged man.
- The subtlest of the magicians of Libya.
 The kind Woodcutter found and brought the child home.
- They brought up the Star-Child and treated him impartially.

*Beggar- woman:

- She is a beggar woman but actually she is the queen and the
real mother of the Star- Child.
- Her son was stolen 10 years earlier and she never stopped
looking for him.
- She recognizes that he is her son but he does not accept her
- The mother suffers a lot for this thing but in the end the boy
repents and she forgives him.
*The Magician:
- An old and evil-visaged man.
- The subtlest of the magicians of Libya.
- He bought the Star- Child from the soliders who stood on
guard and treated him very badly.

*The Hare:

- It was caught in a trap and the Star- Child released it.

- Then the Hare helped the Star- Child to fulfill the task
assigned to him by his owner in return.
*The leper:
- He is a beggar- man but he is the King and the real father of
the Star- Child in fact.
- He asked him for gold pieces and the Star- Child gave him
them away.

The settings

- Times: when the starchild become ugly and realizes his

mistake and goes looking for his mother within 3 years
- Place: in the forest where he runs to find his mother, in a city
where he finds his mother and his father.

Plot summary
 The Star-Child goes to rejoin his friends but they shun him and
call him ugly. He goes off in search of her. After three years, the
Star-Child arrives at a city. The soldiers who guard the city
gates sell him as a slave to a Magician. He tells the Star-Child to
fetch the piece of white gold , he will be punished if he does not
bring it back. Out of gratitude, the Hare leads the boy to the
piece of white gold. The boy gives the leper the piece of white
gold. The same soldiers who had sold him into slavery call him
their lord and compliment him on his good looks. The Star-
Child cries at the beggar woman's feet, washing them with his
tears. For a short while, the people of the city live happily under
the rule of the Star-Child.

Theme(s):

* Beauty:
It is no surprise that Wilde permeates his tales with art and
beauty. The Star-Child relinquishes beauty and art for
morality.

*Love:

In “The Star child”, the Star-Child is a young Adonis

besotted with his own beauty. In addition, this is the
Queen’s love for her child- the Star-Child.

*Poverty &Inequality

• The life of the people in village, e.g the Woodcutters and the
kind Woodcutter family, was so poor.
• Inequality: “ Why did we make merry, seeing that life is for
rich, and not such as we are? Better we had died of cold in the
forest, or that some wild beast had fallen upon us and slain us.”
(Page 60)

*Morality
 Selfishness, pride, avarice, are decried while selflessness,
kindness, sympathy, and generosity are lauded.

*Compassion

After becoming ugly, the Star- Child was full of with pity for
the other people/ animals…

2.
Because of his beautiful looks, The Star Child becomes vain,
arrogant and cruel. He always loves beauty and makes fun of others,
mocking their incompetence. When he saw that his mother was ugly,
he mocked her to stoned her, got angry at and and rejected the
begging mother. Then when he became ugly, he was chased by his
friends “they drave him out of the garden”. He realized his proud and
cruel towards his mother. Not only that, he was stoned & smocked,
just like what he did to his mother. He realized “In the world there
was neither love nor loving-kindness nor charity for him”. Then he
become a good king.

3.
- The star child’s journey to find his mother begins when he
runs into the forest to call for his mother. And of everything that
he met he made enquiry if perchance they had seen his mother
or not. After 3 years he reached a city where he was acquired by
a magician. After many duties, he helped the leper and returned
to his original beautiful appearance and then the priests and the
high officers of the city accepted him as king through ancient
prophecy. And he saw the beggar and leper near the gate and
they are his parent.
- The Magician assigned Star- Child into a forest near the city in
brings he three pieces of white, yellow and red gold. And he did
not complete. Because he gave these gold for leper.

4.
“Yet ruled he not long, so great had been his suffering, and so
bitter the fire of his testing, for after the space of three years he
died. And he who came after him ruled evilly.”

I can't quite understand the point and purpose of this bitter, tacked
on ending that detracted from the story. 'He learned an important
life lesson but it had been taught in such a brutal way that he died
three years later.

The horrible irony of The Star Child is it can feel as if Oscar Wilde
himself wrote it post-death. The one thing he seemed to learn in
prison was humility (though society, in general should be ashamed
of the reason he was in prison considering his only crime was
being different). And because of the abuses Oscar Wilde's mind
and body suffered while in prison he died nearly three years after
his release. And the world suffered for his loss just as the Star
Child's kingdom suffered for the loss of him.
The story discovers characteristics after he met his mother.
to the gate of this city of Giaours.