Unlike conventional children's' stories, his concern themselves with unrequited love, unnoticed death, and social injustice and several of them end unhappily or at least with a bittersweet tinge to their resolutions.
Wilde manages to set up and utilise rhythm in his stories through the repetition of actions or motifs, but then breaks with that rhythm to give the reader the unconventional ending. 'The Devoted Friend' is a good example of this as it deals with the continued and repeated mis-treatment of an individual and ends with his death. The repetition is broken and we are left jaded and in reflective mood.
Wilde is successful in lampooning the institutions of religion and the class system because his comments on them fit in neatly to the narrative of the stories and the language he uses to express his sentiment is economical. In 'The Happy Prince', for example, he says of the town councillors, 'When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.'
Language plays a key role in these stories. The biblical language and references to heaven and God dignify Wilde's project and protect\it from attack. He uses the language of satire and he is very aware of voice and the style of narration he employs.
In 'The Devoted Friend' the narration is given through a narrator in the story, the Linnet, but we are always aware of Wilde's own voice, with his quips and asides that are epigrammatic in style. It is in being able to imagine Oscar telling these stories to us personally that gives these works that added edge of delight.