A Comparison of a Buddhist Tale and a British Tale

Paper Summary:

This is an in-depth juxtaposition and analysis of Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince" and a Buddhist tale "The Biography of the Buddha". It details the plots and main characters of both tales and tries to compare them, and find similarities between them. The comparison is done by examining the narrative construction of both stories. It compares both main characters: the prince and Buddha and manages to find many similarities between their characters and behaviorisms. It details Buddhism outlook on life as well as the happy Princes' outlook, both optimistic.

From the Paper:

""The Happy Prince" tells the story of a prince, whom, while he was alive, was always happy and lived in a great, walled palace. When he died he was fashioned into a statue of gold and placed where all could see him in the middle of the town square. The story of the Buddha, or Naropa, or Siddartha Gautama, as he is sometimes known, tells the tale of young Brahmin (one step down from the priests in the Indian caste system) who was highly sheltered from the world. One day, he was taken out of the walled confines of his home. There, he witnessed three sights: old age, sickness, and death. Then he sees a holy man and is struck by the obvious "sincerity" of the man's bearing. These sights spurred him to renounce the world and enter into a life of contemplation. The results of these years of contemplation was Buddhism, an epiphany he struck upon when a young girl presented him with a bowl of rice after many years of fasting. (Saunders 23; Mitchell 39-40)"

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