The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde.

Stephenson, Mimosa

The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde. By Jarlath Killeen. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7546-5813-9. Pp. viii + 194. $99.95.

Jarlath Killeen introduces his allegorical approach to Oscar Wilde's two collections of fairy tales and then treats each tale individually, connecting it to his thesis that the tales, though on the surface simple, supernatural, and moral, are underneath treatments of the social, political, and religious plight of the people of Ireland in the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly during and after the potato famine that wiped out the cottier and laboring classes through starvation and emigration. Killeen begins each chapter briefly summarizing previously published allegorical approaches to the stories, especially sexual interpretations, such as those of Christopher S. Nassaar in Into the Demon Universe: A Literary Exploration of Oscar Wilde (1974); Gary Schmidgall in The Stranger Wilde: Interpreting Oscar (1994); John Charles Duffy in "Gay Related Themes in the Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde" (2001); and Naomi Wood's "A Child's Garden of Decadence: Paterian Aesthetics, Pederasty, and Oscar's Wilde's Fairy Tales" (2004), before treating in detail the historical problems in Ireland and then showing how those problems are obliquely presented through Wilde's stories. Though Wilde's parents were upper-class Protestants, Killeen sees Wilde as drawn to the folk-Catholicism (steeped in the fairies and superstitious practices of old Irish culture) of the working classes in Ireland, and in the tales subversively supporting the folk. Arguing that the stories are intended for both children and adults, he acknowledges that children will be unlikely to pick up on the underlying messages he finds in the tales, suggesting, "Wilde himself appears to have been committed to a theory of Gnosticism whereby knowledge is transmitted from the initiated to acolytes through codes and symbols ..." (10). It is these messages that Killeen is interpreting for his uninitiated readers. He sees his study as part of a dialogue with other critics of the tales and acknowledges that his work supplements, rather than replaces, previous readings before providing his own cogent exegesis of the tales, admitting that the study is a transformed version of his doctoral thesis.

The first collection, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, contains five stories, each of which, according to Killeen, functions below the surface on an additional level related to poor Irish Catholics. In this reading, the title story, "The Happy Prince," argues allegorically that the reformation required to end social inequality must come through "moral transformation of the individual" rather than "a radical shake-up of the political system" (22). The Happy Prince and the Swallow, who humble themselves, are the ones God recognizes. In the next tale, the title characters, the nightingale and the rose tree, represent Christ and his mother Mary (who is traditionally related to roses as in the rosary). Killeen cites Guy Willoughby (Art and Christhood: The Aesthetics of Oscar Wilde, 1993) in arguing that the immolation of the nightingale on the thorn symbolizes the crucifixion of Christ. Killeen also sees connections with the Philomela myth, pointing out that the preceding story in the collection contains a swallow. Killeen relates "The Selfish Giant" to nineteenth-century landlordism in Ireland, pointing out that the traditional paternalistic relationship between the land-holder and his tenants, as in England, failed in Irish landlord / tenant relations because of differences in religion and absenteeism of English landlords. Wilde provides an idealistic resolution to the story as the giant (the English landlord) gives up his selfishness and tears down the wall, inviting the children (the Irish laborers) into his garden. The child who has transformed the giant has nail prints in his hands and feet and ultimately invites the giant to his garden in Paradise. Killeen's interpretation of "The Devoted Friend" concentrates on the English treatment of the starving Irish during the potato famine. The hypocritical Miller (the English who continued to export foodstuffs), makes demands on poor Hans (starving Irish cottiers and laborers) but refuses to aid him in his distress, arguing that it is better to leave people in trouble alone. Killeen connects "The Remarkable Rocket" and fireworks with the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day on November 5 each year, a celebration of deliverance from the Catholic menace. Wilde's making the Roman Candle the sensible speaker and blowing up the rocket in obscurity identifies the side Wilde takes in the struggle between the Protestant and the Catholic. Thus Killeen connects all of Wilde's stories in the first collection to the struggles of the Irish Catholic folk.

Killeen relates the four stories of the second collection, A House of Pomegranates, to the Christian story. The title character in "The Young King," seeing the suffering involved in constructing his beautiful coronation garments, refuses to wear them, but God provides glorious robes in their stead. Killeen relates the story to English colonization, saying, "The message of the story is dogmatically Christian: turn to Christ and be saved or remain in the valley of the shadow and the degradation of spirit that exists there" (121). In his interpretation of "The Birthday of the Infanta," Killeen focuses on the complex treatment of the Virgin Mary. Wilde accepts the Immaculate Conception but realizes that the doctrine was used to consolidate power in the hands of men to the exclusion of women. He connects the declaration of the Immaculate Conception (1854) with the doctrine of Papal Infallibility (1870) as the pope, in having authority to declare Mary's purity (and thus divine status), also shows himself infallible, the Marian doctrine having been long accepted among the poorer classes of Catholic believers.

The most convincing interpretation in the book is that of "The Fisherman and His Soul," where the opposition of the Priest to the protagonist identifies a dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church. Killeen relates the tale to a revolution in the Church in Ireland between 1850 and 1875. For well over a millennium, the Irish priests had believed the same things as the laity did and willingly participated in folk rituals that they saw as complementary to their Christian faith. After the famine, during which most of the laboring poor were removed, the Irish Catholic Church became much more orthodox, and church attendance, including confession, increased. Larger farms emerged (requiring regularization of sexual practice to legitimate inheritance issues), a new national school system sought to eradicate the old language, and newly trained priests insisted on orthodox belief in the churches and the eradication of folk customs and belief that contradicted Tridentine orthodoxy. Killeen sees the Mermaid and her people in Wilde's tale as representing Irish Catholicism and the cottier class, which has been largely removed from Ireland by the Famine, but which reveres things of the body, while the Church insists on the vileness of the body. Killeen finds the tale "the site of a battle for the heart and soul of the middle-class Catholic who would have to eventually work out where his loyalties lie" (150). The fisherman initially wants to use the Mermaid to increase his profit but comes to love her and reject his spear and his nets, allegorically rejecting the business motive in favor of love and sexuality, a threat to the money-making establishment. Wilde makes the heart the most important part of the fisherman so that as body, soul, and Mermaid need to be reunited, so do bourgeois Catholics, Anglo-Irish, and folk-Catholics need to reconcile in love as represented by the Priest's transformation at the end of the story as he finds flowers on the altar in serving the Eucharist.

"The Star-Child" provides Killeen the opportunity for an anticapitalistic reading, though he continues the connection with the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. Killeen relates this, the loveliest of the tales, to the dichotomy between the city and the country. The Star-Child, whose mother is from the city and who in his ugly form is connected to the adder, corrupts the rural locale where he grows up as the serpent corrupted Eden. The Star-Child claims to be superior to the children of the village, where the rural inhabitants are on speaking terms with the talking animals, but when he goes to the city, he is exploited by the commerce-driven inhabitants, especially by the magician, who sends him back to the forest to seek its treasures and bring them to the city. The Star-Child, after being sold for a bowl of sweet wine, is sent to find gold and gives it up to the leper who begs for money. In the country, the priest is closely involved in the lives of the people, but in the city he can only be found at church and is cut off from the daily lives of the people. The city tends to make all inhabitants anonymous and their religion superficial and "self-constructed" (165). The Star-Child's suffering vicariously for the city reverses the effects of the Fall and his being welcomed into the city as king betokens the Easter of the risen Christ. That the Star-Child reigns only three years before he dies and then is replaced with an evil ruler indicates that a perfect world must wait for the return of the real Christ.

Enjoying Oscar Wilde's fairy tales on the surface as moral tales of transformation and sacrifice and being very fond of allegory, I particularly like Killeen's interpretation. Killeen's interpretations should be taken seriously and should be allowed to channel readers in new directions, especially in seeing the religious dimensions of the tales. The readings are cogent and well argued, never seeming forced, never distorting a tale to make it fit a preconceived notion. However, any allegorical reading such as Killeen's cannot be taken as the whole truth, even if the author has endorsed it, something that is not the case in this instance. The tales themselves do not give us clear references to the near-eradication of folk-Catholicism in the Ireland of Wilde's day. A leap of faith is required to accept Killeen's interpretation as warranted, interesting and well-developed though it may be. Killeen does well to state that he is supplementing existing readings rather than replacing them. A well-crafted story may very well speak to a reader on levels that the writer never intended. We cannot ask Wilde what he intended, but the stories are enriched for me after having read Killeen's book. I recommend it highly, especially to those who approach literature from a Christian worldview. On a very minor note, I do wish the copy had been proofread one more time.

Mimosa Stephenson

University of Texas at Brownsville