Motif Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales

Abstract

The study was aimed to do the motif analysis of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales as Wilde’s fairy tales got significant weightage in his life and he in fact wrote the fairy tales for his sons. Wilde’s fairy tales had almost the same tinge of imagination and supernatural atmosphere as found in the oral fairy tales and he exquisitely presented the sketch and plot of characters with a tug of war and finally like all other fairy tales meets the happy endings with some didactic lessons. The researchers used Thompson Motif Index as a theoretical framework and trace almost all types of motifs however the motifs of society were found most as compared to the other types of motifs. Through these motifs, he truly reflected the picture of his age and the current study also helped establish Wilde’s fairy tales along with the oral tradition of fairy tales.