Introduction :-
"The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde is at once touching and darkly funny. Published in 1888, it relates the plight of the Student, who has fallen in painful love with the professor's daughter. A nightingale hears the Student's plaintive cries and recognizes in them the true love that she has always sung about. She decides to help the Student obtain a red rose to give to his love, even though it will come at great cost to her.
About Oscar Wilde
The life of the Irish novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is as famous as – perhaps even more famous than – his work. But in a career spanning some twenty years, Wilde created a body of work which continues to be read an enjoyed by people around the world: a novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray; short stories and fairy tales such as ‘The Happy Prince’ and ‘The Selfish Giant’; poems including The Ballad of Reading Gaol; and essay-dialogues which were witty revivals of the Platonic philosophical dialogue.
Wilde’s life – his generosity to others, his double life as a family man and someone who engaged with extramarital affairs with other men, and his subsequent downfall when he was put on trial for ‘gross indecency’ – has been movingly written about in Richard Ellmann’s biography of Wilde and in the 1997 biopic Wilde, with Stephen Fry in the title role.
The Nightingale and the Rose’: plot summary
‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ is about a Student who is in love with a woman, a Professor’s daughter. She has told him she will dance with him if he brings her red roses, but the Student’s garden does not contain any roses. The Nightingale listens to the lovelorn student lamenting his hopeless love, and feels sorry for him.
She knows how rare true love is, and she knows it when she sees it. The Prince is giving a ball the following night, but although the Student and the woman he loves will both be there, she will not dance with him without a red rose.
A Lizard, a Butterfly, and a Daisy all tell the Nightingale that it’s ridiculous that the young Student is weeping over a red rose, but the Nightingale sympathises with him. She flies to a nearby grass-plot and asks the Rose-tree to give her a red rose, and in exchange she will sing for it. But the Rose-tree says it produces only white roses, so cannot give her what she wants. It suggests going to the Rose-tree by the sun-dial.
The Nightingale proposes the same deal with this tree, but it replies that it only produces yellow roses, so cannot help. However, it directs her to the Rose-tree right under the student’s window. However, although this Rose-tree does produce red roses, the winter has frozen its branches and it cannot produce any.
The Nightingale asks if there is any way she can get one red rose for the Student. The tree replies that the only way of producing a red rose is for the Nightingale to sing by moonlight while allowing a thorn to pierce her heart, so her blood seeps through to the tree and produces a red rose. The Nightingale agrees to this, because she believes Love to be more valuable than Life, and a human heart more precious than hers.
She goes and tells the forlorn Student what she is going to do, but he doesn’t understand her, because he only understands things written down in books. The Oak-tree, in which the Nightingale has built her nest, does understand her words, however, and requests one last song from the Nightingale. She sings, but the Student, taking out his notebook, is rather unimpressed, because the bird’s song has no practical use.
That night, the Nightingale sings with her heart against the thorn, until it eventually pierces her heart while she sings of love. Her heart’s blood seeps into the tree and produces a red rose, but by the time the flower is formed the Nightingale has died.
The next morning, the Student opens his window and sees the red rose on the tree, and believes that it is there thanks to mere good luck. Plucking the rose, he goes to the house where his sweetheart lives, and presents her with the red rose. But another suitor, the Chamberlain’s nephew, has sent her jewels, which are more valuable than flowers, so she says she will dance with him instead at the ball that night.
The Student denounces the girl for her fickleness, and she calls him rude. He throws the red rose into the gutter, where a cart rolls over it. As he walks home, he decides to reject Love in favour of Logic and Philosophy, which have a more practical use.
Themes of the Story :-
Love and Sacrifice
From start to finish, "The Nightingale and the Rose" is a story about the nature of love. Love is what the Student claims to feel for the girl, and it is also what inspires the Nightingale to sacrifice her life to create a red rose; doing so, she thinks, will help the Student win his sweetheart's affection.The fact that neither the Student nor the girl appreciates the Nightingale's sacrifice, however, complicates the story's meaning. In the end, Wilde suggests that true love is possible, but that much of what people commonly call love is shallow and self-interested.
Art and Idealism
Oscar Wilde is likely the most famous British writer associated with Aestheticism, a late 19th-century movement that championed "art for art's sake." In contrast to those who argued that the arts should address social issues or impart moral lessons, the Aesthetics contended that art's sole purpose was to be beautiful. This question about the nature and role of art forms the backdrop to "The Nightingale and the Rose," with the Nightingale and the Student embodying opposite sides of the debate.
Materialism, Intellectualism, and Emotion
Despite its fairy-tale setting, "The Nightingale and the Rose" engages with the real-world debates taking place in the late 1800s. The Enlightenment of the preceding century had inspired great confidence in humanity's ability to solve scientific, practical, and even moral problems with reason. Rapid industrialization (and the wealth it generated) lent further credence to these ideas by "proving" the success of 18th-century scientific innovation and free-market economics.
"The Nightingale and the Rose" Characters :-
The first character to enter the story is the Student, who is never named. The Student is a young man caught in the throes of love. Though he studies Philosophy, he finds himself overwhelmed by this powerful emotion. "She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," he cries, "but in all my garden there is no red rose."
The Student is presented as somewhat of a philistine, finding no value in the beauty of the nightingale's song. He is only capable of appreciating the logic of his dusty textbooks. Apparently, his studies have not prepared him for the real world, for he has no idea what to do with his emotions. The Student may have knowledge, but he lacks wisdom.
The Rose-tree under the Student's window is the only tree in the Garden that grows red roses. However, it's barely survived an especially bitter winter, and can't provide any red roses this year. However, that's not entirely true—the Rose-tree can grow a rose, but only if the Nightingale pays a great price.
" 'If you want a red rose,' said the Tree, 'you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart's-blood. You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into my veins, and become mine.' "
In contrast with the knowledgeable Student, the Nightingale is wise. She knows the value of love and the place that beauty has in this world. Her song exalts true love, and she is relieved when she finally meets a "true lover" in the Student, whose "hair is dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made his lace like pale Ivory, and sorrow has set her seal upon his brow." Now that she has found a true lover, she sets out to make his love possible.
The Nightingale knows that Love is greater than Life, so when she discovers that the only way to obtain a red rose is to sacrifice her own heart, she does so willingly. All of nature listens to her final love song.
The last character to appear is the professor's daughter, the object of the Student's affection. She is an altogether materialistic creature. Even though she has asked for a red rose, she is more impressed by the jewels and silver buckles of the Chamberlain's nephew.
Moral of The Story.:-
The moral of this story is that the world is full of people who know much and understand little. They cannot appreciate true love and beauty, and put all their faith in practical things instead.
Conclusion :-
It is a children’s story but it deals with philosophical and emotional issues that are beyond the understanding of children. It is also enriched with the wealth of deep meaning. It is full of indirect comments on life, personifications, similes and symbolism.
Moreover, in this story Oscar Wilde raises the most common issues of materialism and idealism present in the conventional society he lived in.
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