If there is one emotion that grabs a child more than any other, more than suspense, fear, amusement or pleasure, it is surely injustice. There is nothing more guaranteed to get a child hooting with indignation than the story of a good person unfairly treated, taken advantage of, misunderstood, traduced, betrayed or exploited. ‘It’s not fair!’ is one of the great cries of the young, and ‘Well, life isn’t’ is the petty (and wholly unsatisfactory) reply of the aged.
The Devoted Friend, like the Selfish Giant, tends a garden, which we can interpret as a symbol for our life’s work, our family, whatever you please. It is enough perhaps that it is a garden. The friend, quite unlike the giant, is selfless, almost to the point of being maddening. Such self-sacrifice, such affection, such trust is charming, but…
The Miller is as ripe a satirical target as one can imagine. He is the embodiment of one for whom the gap between what is said and what is lived is simply too wide to be spanned. Hypocrisy doesn’t cover it. This is self-delusion on the most massive scale.
In Wilde’s great comedies characters are very fond of declaring what they believe in and what they are and we, the audience, are invited to see how far from the truth their declarations lie. The Miller is a perfect instance of just such a character. As with all satire it is far too easy to identify with the good. We who shake our heads and fists at the Miller had better be quite sure that we know and live out what friendship means before we damn him too entirely.
The Devoted Friend is funny in a cruel way, if you want to read it like that, but it can also be seen as sad in a kind way. Perhaps those two qualities can be said to define Wilde’s own wit.