ABSTRACT:Oscar Wilde, Irish-born English playwright, novelist, essayist and poet, brought us a series of successful and innovative productions of different genres. He only wrote nine fairy tales in his whole life, while it is universally acknowledged that his fairy tales is extraordinary. He broke the routine stereotypes of fairy tales, and used it as a mask to rebel against conventional morality in the Victorian era.
This thesis analyses the typical characteristics of Wilde’s fairy tales’ roles at first. Then, detailed analysis of the fairy tales—The Devoted Friend is presented about the roles’ personality as well as character and realistic significance. Moreover, it also discusses the fate of roles and their attribution. Finally, it draws a conclusion that the roles in Wilde’s fairy tales reflected and staired the society or expressed the pursuit of truth, virtue and beauty. And Wilde wanted to arouse people’s hope to pursuing a everlasting beautiful world through his fairy tales.
Key Words: Wilde; fairy tale; The Devoted Friend; characterization; character; personality
摘要:奥斯卡·王尔德是出生于爱尔兰的英国剧作家、诗人、散文家，英国唯美主义运动的代表人物。他一生创作的九篇童话，打破了传统的模式，并借着童话的面具来批判社会。
本文首先从其人物背景，人物形象，人物个性，修辞运用等方面分析了王尔德塑造童话人物的特色；接着以《忠实的朋友》为例，重点分析了其中人物的形象和个性；并且探讨了童话人物命运及归属。最后得出结论是，王尔德童话中的人物无不是或讽刺社会或表达其对真善美的追求，并期望用童话的形式唤醒人们对美好世界的追求。
关键词：王尔德；童话；《忠实的朋友》；人物塑造；人物形象；人物个性
Character is one of the most basic elements of a story, and plays an important role in advancing plot and toning up the expressive force. Wilde’s fairy tales’ characterization is the key element in his successful works. Actually, Wilde created these fairy tales not merely because of telling some story, and the characterization not merely for portraying roles yet. In Wilde’ fairy tales, the characterization was connected with the theme, he intended to utilize the development of roles to disclose and criticize the cruelty and evil of the real world, which is one of the characteristics and the value of his fairy tales.
Moreover, Wilde often made use of the destiny of roles to reveal the theme. In Wilde’s fairy tales, except for The Young King, the other fairy tales’ leading roles died at last. Wilde wanted to through death to underline the contradiction of roles’ destiny. For example, in The Devoted Friend, little Hans died for his kindness, Wilde did not show how good and poor little Hans was, but on the contrary, it showed how evil big Hugh was. Thus, the tragic fate of little Hans brought out the social injustices and ugliness.
