I always believe that many fairy tales are not for children, but for adults.
Innocent children will never be able to understand the sorrow in the contents of these tales. Most things they’ll see are just happy endings. No one of them will ever question about the happily-ever-after of Snow White or Cinderella.
The stories created by Oscar Wilde are the last child readings in the world. There are too many things hidden in the plots, such as faith, love and betray, etc. There is too much complicated philosophy. All these are too heavy to bear for children at early age. Only adults can read between the lines of the wonderful tales and sense the ugliness and brutality of the world, the struggling and the deepest desperations in real life.
I do love the work of this man, the Irish playwright, novelist, and poet. He successfully captures some truth of life in the obscure details of his words. I always wonder how sensitive a person must be to feel all these trivialities. How much the person must be suffering from his/her sensitivity accordingly?! It is a kind of gift. But it must be a curse as well. His life story, especially his love story, is a legend of his day. He’s so talented. He’s so brave. He’s so sad.