Themes
Pleasure and blindness to suffering
In life the Prince was happy only because he never looked. He lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci, 'where sorrow is not allowed to enter', and never cared to ask what lay beyond its lofty wall. Death reverses this. Raised on his column, he sees the seamstress, the young playwright and the match-girl, and learns from the Swallow of starving children in dark lanes, and he cannot stop weeping. His name becomes ironic, and his words to the Swallow, 'There is no Mystery so great as Misery', show that his earlier happiness depended on not seeing.
Love and self-sacrifice
Both the Prince and the Swallow give themselves away piece by piece. The Prince surrenders his ruby, then his eyes, then his gold, until he is blind and grey. The Swallow begins as a vain, flighty lover who drops the Reed because she has 'no conversation', but each night he postpones Egypt a little longer until he chooses to stay 'always'. His death at the Prince's feet, after a kiss on the lips, and the leaden heart that snaps at that moment, make their friendship the emotional centre of the tale.
Civic vanity
The city's officials care only for appearances. A Town Councillor praises the statue as 'as beautiful as a weathercock', then worries about seeming unpractical. The Mayor proposes a proclamation forbidding birds to die in the square, the Art Professor declares that the statue is no longer useful because it is no longer beautiful, and each Councillor wants the melted metal made into a statue of himself. The narrator leaves them 'quarrelling still', a sharp picture of public men who see nothing of the misery the statue saw.
True and false value
To the city the statue's worth lies in its gold, its sapphires and its ruby, yet its heart is only lead, and the Swallow is surprised to find it is not solid gold. Stripped of every precious thing, the statue is judged worthless and melted down. God reverses the city's judgement: asked for the two most precious things in the city, the Angel brings the broken leaden heart and the dead bird from the dust-heap. What mattered was never the gold but the love that gave it away.
Charity that goes unseen
None of the people the Prince helps knows where the gifts come from. The seamstress sleeps through the Swallow's visit, the young playwright believes his sapphire comes from 'some great admirer', and the match-girl runs home laughing at 'a lovely bit of glass'. The Prince seeks no thanks and gets none. His remark that 'the living always think that gold can make them happy' cuts both ways: the gold does feed the children, but the tale values the giving, and the love behind it, above anything the gold can buy.