Analysis:

[“The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he loved him to well. He picked up crumbs outside of the baker’s door when the baker was not looking, and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.”] (5th paragraph of 7th page)

In the Happy Prince there’s a couple of themes including love and beauty, but in the quote above we can see the theme of sacrifice. The little Swallow seeing that the Prince have nobody to look after him, after he gave away all his gold and valuable eyes, he is willing to sacrifice his life for the love that he has for the Prince. The little Swallow knows that he is going to die if he stays with the Prince because the winter would kill him, but that’s a risk that he is willing to take. A connection that has a contrast to this, is the short novel of Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis.” Although a similarity would have been better to compare The Happy Prince with the Metamorphosis, but a distinction is more revealed between the two stories. For example Gregor was sacrificing his health, literally his life by working very hard to support his family. He was tired of the same old routine every morning, and not be able to manage his own money which his father was doing so. But his family didn’t make any sacrifice for him when he became a giant bug. To prove how terrible he was mistreated, “We must get rid of it,’ cried the sister again, ‘that’s the only thing for it, father.”(pg.238). In this quote we can see that Gregor’s little sister doesn’t see him as her brother anymore, instead she calls him “it”, like if he is some kind of an object. Gregor’s appearance may not be the same, but he still have the same feelings and emotions as when he was a human being. In the Happy Prince the Swallow sacrifice his life for the Prince, but in the Metamorphosis the family didn’t make any sacrifice for him, they only gave hatred toward Gregor, after at first he was sacrificing himself for them.

Reference of image: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2166225/
http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-Happy-Prince-66493224