Narrative Analysis of Oscar Wilde‟s Short Story “The Happy Prince”

Uzma Shaheen

Abstract

This paper discusses the basic elements of a narrative by analyzing the short story "The Happy Prince" written by Oscar Wilde. The study, evaluation, and understanding of narrative are called narratology. Here in this paper, the narrative pattern of a short story is analyzed to elaborate narratology and its usage in narrative analysis. In the narrative analysis, the main focus is on the art of characterization, plot construction, narrative pattern of story, point of view and speech, thought presentation to make this short story more comprehensive and understandable for its readers. Special observation is made by representing some dialogues from the source text "The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde. In narratology the ideas of its main proponents such as Aristotle, Gerard Genette and Vladimir Propp are applied on source text to articulate the desired upshot. The aim to conduct this research is to illustrate narratology, narrative patterns and its application on literary text for its readers especially for the teachers and learners so that they can better interpret any narrative piece of writing.