Abstract

Wilde is not a prolific writer, but almost in all fairy tales he has composed, death and sacrifice never fail to show up in one way or another. It is noticeable that his creative idea and courage to confront death and sacrifice transfers the horror of death to imagination for beauty.

Through textual closing reading of the two collections of Wilde's fairy tales along with a study of the researches done by predecessors, this paper intends to discuss why Wilde favors the death theme and how death and sacrifice are embodied in his fairy tales. With interpretation of specific texts this paper attempts to explore Wilde's unique understanding of death and sacrifice from three aspects,namely, from religious, cultural and personal perspective thus to analyze Wilde's consciousness of death, particularly sacrifice, which is of noble meaning of death.

Keyword: Oscar Wilde； death； sacrifice；children's literature