"The Boy-Star": a short summary. "The Star Boy", Wilde

Everyone knows the name of Oscar Wilde, a wonderful writer. But, unfortunately, the increased attention of the public draws upon itself only one work of the writer - "The Portrait of Dorian Gray", leaving undeservedly in the shadow other works of the master. One such "shadow masterpiece" will be devoted to this article.

"The Boy-Star" - a fairy tale with an unhappy end

Even if you look only at a brief summary, O. Wilde's "Boy-Star" will seem a very sad tale. It all starts with the fact that the woodcutters go through the forest. It's a bitter winter. They no longer feel their hands or feet. And suddenly they see a star fall from the sky . They run to the place where they think they fell, and they find a child wrapped in a cloak (it is embroidered with gold), even with a child there is an amber necklace. One of the lumberjacks took pity on the baby and took him to his house.

The logger's wife did not want to take the baby at first, she said that they already had so many mouths and little food, but then the "good Samaritan" put the baby on her knees, and the woman's heart melted. She adopted a child. The woodcutter and his wife raised the boy as their own, never letting him understand by his attitude that he was adopted. This is the tale of a fairy tale. Ahead is a brief summary. "The boy-star" is not an easy story, and you will be convinced of this.

The main moral conflict of the fairy tale:

Surprisingly, despite the excellent attitude of good people, the boy grew angry and cruel, because he considered himself the son of a star. Besides, the boy was handsome, strong. This allowed him to be the leader not only of his named brothers and sisters, but of all the surrounding children. Once a beggar came to the house. Outwardly, she was terrible: her face sharpened leprosy, her hands were in ulcers, and she was dressed in rags. The cruel boy began to mock him in every possible way. The woodcutter was furious with the behavior of the adopted son and made him a severe suggestion. However, the boy did not hearken to his father and, with his usual ambition, declared: "You are commoner, you have no right to tell me. I'm the son of a star. " Father reasonably reminded him that it was he, a simple lumberman, who saved him from death a long time ago. The beggar, hearing this, rushed to him and confessed that she was the mother of the "boy from the star". The woodcutter was delighted and told his son, who played on the street, that he went into the house, for the boy is waiting for his mother. A heartless youth came into the house. Before him was just a beggar, over which he had only recently mocked. He said that it was not his mother, and that he would rather kiss a toad or viper than her. Having said this, he left the house. But before he had time to show himself on the street, as his now-former friends had called the beautiful young man "a freak," a "toad." He could not understand what was going on, but then he found a pond and saw in it that he had become terribly disgusting (here you can see some myth about daffodil vice versa). He realized that his punishment for sins had come upon him. Ashamed of his behavior, he said goodbye to the lumberjack and his family and went in search of a beggar mother, with whom he had treated him so unfairly. This is the summary. "The Star Boy" is a fairy tale whose main moral conflict is the struggle of good and evil in the heart of a person.

Increasing tension and culmination

Further, the action develops very rapidly, and the tale is read in one breath. No matter how much the boy wandered, he could not find his mother. Anyway, the road led the terrible young man to the gates of the city, and he asked the guards if they had seen the beggar. She is his mother. He told them that to find her was a matter of life and death for him. The guards only laugh at the "monster" and eventually sell him into slavery past the passing sorcerer. The sorcerer locks it in his castle and lets it out only so that the former "star boy" obtains for him in the forest three coins - from white, from red, from yellow gold.

The boy went into the forest. Accidentally saved there a bunny, and not in vain. Because it was the bunny that helped him get coins for the old sorcerer, but they never got to the villain. Every time the boy returned from the forest, he met on the road beggar and asked to give coins. And each time a boy who at that moment was completely transformed, yielded to the request of a tramp. When the boy gave the last coin to a beggar and was already waiting for death at the hands of a sorcerer, the world suddenly changed: the guards knelt, and next to the beggar stood the same beggar-the boy's mother. The young man washed his tears with her tears, her wounds and her ulcers. She said: "Go up. You helped a beggar, you helped your father. " Needless to say, his beauty and strength have returned to the boy. He was the prince of that kingdom, in the main city of which he could not enter yet some time ago. This is the culmination of the tale, its brief content. The "boy-star" does not end there.

The final "hairpin" from Oscar Wilde

The author of "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" would not have been himself, if he had finished the tale on a positive note. He said something else. Of course, in order to feel the beauty of Wilde's joke, you need to read the whole story, and not look at the short content of the story "The Boy-Star". But the debt still tells the reader of this article that O. Wilde finished the composition approximately like this: our dear prince, although he was fair, kind and merciful to all, did not rule for too long. His poor heart could not stand the experience of suffering, and three years later he died, and heirs of the throne were tyrants, so his subjects were not too lucky. This end of the tale replaces Wilde's signature. Unmistakably recognizable stylistics of the master.

"The Star Boy" is "Dorian Gray", on the contrary

So, what did O. Wilde want to say? "The boy-star", the brief content of which you have read, the fairy tale is unusual. But, yielding to temptation, it is worth saying: even a cursory glance is enough to understand: "The Star Boy" is a work about the moral revival of a person, about a spiritual revolution, about the unconditional victory of good over evil. "Portrait of Dorian Gray", on the contrary, about the moral and spiritual degradation of man. And on the denouement, or rather, on the final "hairpin" it is clear that Wilde, as an artist, hates happy ends. He is more pleased with the vast unfolding of evil in man. The aesthetic position of O. Wilde can be expressed in one quote from "Portrait ...": "When tragedy combines with beauty, beautiful is born." And what could be more tragic and more beautiful than the gradual death of beauty?