The devoted friend

The devoted friend is a short story written by Oscar Wild, in 1888 (he lived between 1854-1900). Oscar Wild was born in 1854, in 16 october as the second of three children, in Dublin, Irland. His father was a surgeon and his mother a poet. He studied at home and at some not very important colleges, but he graduated at Oxford, England. There he met Walter Pater, a great influence on him, and he helped founding the Aestethic Mouvement, art for arts sake. He was conquered by beauty, by beauty as a concept, in its many ways that is known to man. Hance his principles, that were sent through the ages in the morals of his writtings. He was equisitely elegant in his dressingrespecting the Victorian style of the time- and in his behaviour. Of course he was often crithisized by his peers, for it seemed he was considered to be a noncomformist in his thoughts and his art. But once more I say, he did so elegantly, in my opinion. He is one of those we need to thank for the progress of the society we are living in to. And I do not meen the scientific progress, but the mental one, for he was a master of ideas and he managed to red deep into peoples hearts where he stambled across feelings, rotten and mean feelins or on the contrary and he understud these feeling are characteristic for the human kind. Hance the moden and fresh air of his writings , for they are applicable in every century, in every society. The devoted friend is a humoristic short story that talks about friendship, or how different people understand the concept of friendship and the consequences; around the idea that A friend in need is a friend indeed. The plot takes place on a pond. The main characters are: Little Hans, Water-rat, the Duck, Linnet (the story-teller), the Miller and Millers wife. The story is told by the song-birt to the Water-rat and the Duk. The author pre-told the story by setting a scene with a female duck teaching its kids to stand on their head in the water and other animals talking about the true friendship and what a devoted friend meant. This helps bring the readers into the story by getting involved in the animals conversation and listening to Linnets narration. The author use a third person narrator Linnet, Using a character in the story to tell the real story is an effective way to get the readers involved in the story.

Little Hans was a simple, innocent, kind-hearted and sincere person. e He was a hard working gardener and earned his living by selling the fruits and flowers into the market. He had a comfortable house and the most beautiful garden in the area and his passion was to take care of his floweres and relax by listening to the birds. He was a lonely, unmarried man, yet not unhappy, for he had no one to upset him. But due to his loneliness and kind heart, found himself friends with the miller, a greedy and selfish rich man , that impressed Little hans whith empty words and claim to be a devoted friend. In the summer season, the miller would go to the garden of Hans and bring plenty of flowers and fruit without paying him, he even considere he was making a faavour to Hans for letting him be a generous friend. In the cold season, he never visited Hans, he even told his wife There is no good in my going to see little Hans as long as the snow lasts, for when people are in trouble they should be left alone, and not be bothered by visitors. That at least is my idea about friendship, and I am sure I am right. So I shall wait till the spring comes, and then I shall pay him a visit, and he will be able to give me a large basket of primroses and that will make him so happy. Not even when his san asked why they could not invite Hans to stay with the while its cold, he did not abandoned his idea that a friend must not be bothered with being given help , only with being asked for it, so he told his san that if Hans was to come to them, and see there warm fire and good supper he might get envy or even ask to barrow a sak of flavour and he must avoid that at all costs, because he, as a good friend will always wach over him and make sure he is not led into temptation and that Flour is one thing, and friendship is another, and they should not be confused. Why, the words are spelt differently, and mean quite different things. Everybody can see that. Although this did not stopped him from asking a big basket of floweres from Hans as soon as the spring came, even if Hans wanted to sell the floweres and buy back what he sold during winter, so he could survive. And Hans, in his innocence gave his floweres away, as he always did, because this is what a devoted friend did, or at least this is what the Miller told him a devolted friend does. He never gave anything to Hans. Hugh the miller repeatedly exploited Hans. Sometimes, he sent Hans to Market with a heavy sack of flour. Sometimes, he asked Hans to drive his flock of sheep to the mountains for grazing. He would also ask Hans to work on his flourmill or do some work of repair in his barn. In return, he merely made a promise to give his invalid and damaged wheelbarrow to Hans, free of cost. The miller called it an act of great generosity. Unfortunately, the promise was never materialized, but the miller

always use to say I do not think it is much to ask of you, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow; but of course if you refuse I will go and do it myself. It is so happened that on a rough and stormy night, Hugh the miller sent little Hans to bring the doctor because the millers little son hand been seriously injured. As usual, little Hans showed compliance and left for the doctors home as he could never think of displeasing the miller. When poor Hans was returning with the doctor, the strom grew more fierce and he lost his way in the dangerous rocky region. He stranded on the moor and fell into a deep pool of water, where he was drowned. Since I cannot impagine someone like Hans unless he had a mental illness, it is my beliefe that the author exaggerated both characters, to make his point. The moral is that true friends are very hard to come by and maybe even harder to recognize. Because a friendly and faithful heart cannot be bought with flowere, or anything for that matter, nor can it be payed for. The meening of the story is pointed out with some symbols.Flowers which Little Hans have they symbolize the property,beauty and everything Little Hans has in his life. Without the flowers, he couldnt manage to survive. Yet, he was devoted enough to give everything he owned to his best friend. Wheelbarrow the Miller gave to Little Hans it symbolizes an excuse that the Miller could use to take advantage on Little Hans and it is also a symbol of his selfish heart, for he knows it has no value and yet he asked so many favours of Hans in return. 'Real friends should have everything in common,' 'friendship never forgets. That is the wonderful thing about it, but I am afraid you don't understand the poetry of life. think that generosity is the essence of friendship, and, besides, I have got a new wheelbarrow for myself. I may be wrong, but I should have thought that friendship, true friendship, was quite free from selfishness of any kind.' These are just some examples of how the miller saw friendship and of the words he used to enchant Hans,whose mistake was to be simple enough to fall for these kind of words. He thought that just because the miller pretendet to be his friend he really was, he confused words with reality and as a result he ended up dead. By no means I do not suggest one should have no friends or not to love them. But we should nevel let another person tell us who we are, what

we want or what we can or cannot do. In my opinion this is the secret of happiness on earth. One should trust only his heart. People might say that Hans trusted his heart, this is why he gave his floweres away and did so many errend for the miller. But I disagree. I say his heart warned him hot to be so foolish, because his firt intention, every time when the miller asked for something was to say no, to preserve his integrity, his property and his life; only after hearing the millers enchanting words he gave in. So I say he let another tell him who de was, what he should or should not do and what he wanted. And in the end he payed the price, I would say not as a punishment, but as a consequence, for he let himself become nothing before he died, when he metamorphosize himself according to the millars wards. Hans lost himself, by letting someone else define him.. so in the end reality just caught up with him, as it does with all of us. I can now conclude that the even more profound understanding of the story is that one should be true to his heart no matter what, because although there is no right or wrong, only a matter of interpretation, and no absolute true, our heat always knows what is just right for us and in the end that is everything that matters. People use to stroll for a long time, sometime an entire life, for a stable point, for a place to lay your head in your hands, in the middle of the ocen, like Iona said. We, as humans, have the bad habit to look for a place we can call home anywere else, but in ourselves. There for, we seek for love outside of us, le search for appreciation, we find friends and lovers and expecte them to love and shelter us, because we feel week and fearful,whitout realizing that we feel this way exactly because we grew astrange from ourselves. But inside our hearts is the only real home we well ever find, the only stable poin, no matter how stormy the weather is, the only place well ever find real love and shelter. I believe both Hans and the miller did this mistakes, in different ways, in deed, ways wich for a human subjective eye seem condemnable or laudable. But I believe that they made the same mistake, only in a different manner. They both searched for home(friendship) outside themselves, the miller, by forcing Hance to be his friend, and hance by letting the miller telling him he has to be a devoted friend. I believe we are our most devoted friends. And I do not sustain selfishness, but I truly believe that if we do not find what we need or want in ourselves, we will never find it anywere else, and we will be unhappy and keep blaiming the outher for not giving us what we need..when in fact they cannot.