Slip of the Pen as A Psychopathology of Everyday Life on Wilde’s Happy Prince and OtherTales

Abstract

Oscar Wilde is recognized for his tragedy and supernatural short stories as one of his astonish works, The Black Cat, still discussed in this very modern day. In 1888, Wilde then succeeded to make a move of his work by the publication of his collection entitled The Happy Prince and Other Tales. The collection consists numbers of the stories; The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and The Rose, The Selfish Giant, and The Devoted Friends. Considering seven works in ne collection, it is possible that Wilde himself did a slip of the pen among his works in a collection. This study aims to find a slip of the pen in Wilde's collection The Happy Prince and Other Tales, and to analyze the construction and the effect of the slip through his collection as well. In analyzing the occurrence of the slip, the study uses the psychopathology of everyday life, one of the remarkable theories of Freud. This study finds that Wilde, in fact, did two kinds of slip of the pen such realization on his writing and meaning repetition. For the realization, it could be find on his first story where he actually wanted to show the great sense of love and kindness in The Happy Prince, but ended the story by shading the love itself with 'little better than a beggar'. For the meaning repetition, it appeared on his idea on love as a silly thing on the second to the fourth story.