Name: The Remarkable Rocket
ISBN: 9781443442701

Oscar Wilde

Consumed with self-importance, a rocket misses his chance for greatness at the wedding of a prince and princess. When he is found by two boys, he feels again his chance at greatness, only to have his final explosion go off unobserved. Victorian author Oscar Wilde is known both as a playwright and prose author. Among his most famous works are The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel, the plays An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, and the short story collections Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories and The Happy Prince and Other Stories. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

Short Story

The Remarkable Rocket

Sophie Shrimpton

Wilde’s satire about a selfish rocket couldn’t have popped up at a more opportune moment in my life. I’ve spent the last few days thinking about selfishness. Why are people selfish? Why are people selfless? What is a reasonable amount of selfishness? How much can you pin on the individualism of capitalism/white culture, and how much should a person be responsible for? What if I am selfish? Wilde ties selfishness with class. The bourgeoisie are selfish - they think they perform the most important role in society, but actually they perform the least important role - they are merely showy, performative and excessive, just like our Remarkable Rocket. Their classism provides the defensive mechanism that allows them to continuously gas themselves up and act like they’re ‘special’. 

In terms of individual responsibility, I have always struggled with pinning selfishness on someone. Not only because I am constantly searching for external context to explain away selfish behaviour as rational and valid, but because I don’t know where the line is between reasonable self-care and unreasonable self-serving behaviour. I can acknowledge when people are selfish in individual situations, but struggle to pinpoint when someone is chronically selfish. I think this is due to me being lucky with friends - most of my close relationships have been with selfless or non-selfish people. Most likely because I avoid any person who exudes selfishness right from the get go. But in the few circumstances where I have made a mistake and am forced to ‘make a call’, I struggle to remove the presumption of selflessness. I’ve only done so a couple of times in my life, and I still don’t know if I made the right decision in those situations. 

I wonder if I’m enabling a system of bourgeois selfishness. But, if I did call it out at every turn, I would be too ‘critical’ and be dismissed. I suppose what I’m getting to is: what do you do when selfishness is a normalised part of your historical moment? Ostracise yourself? Help me Oscar. There are too many remarkable rockets.

Audiobook ‘read’. Only read The Remarkable Rocket, as part of a different short stories series.

The Remarkable Rocket Short Story

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