The
story is an example for a parable where there are human as well as non-human
characters. The title of the story is “The Nightingale and the Rose” - this is
despite the fact that there are human players in the story. By doing so, the
writer challenges the prevailing concept that man is the measure of everything.
In many of his works Wilde tacitly questions the homocentric worldview
encouraged by both the church and the state.
The story begins
dramatically with an if-clause which
underscores the fact that the possibility of a relationship between the
Professor’s daughter and the Student is based on an exchange. He gets the
physical gratification of dancing with a girl and the sense of socio-political
achievement by being linked with the Professor’s daughter who appears to be
quite in demand; on the one hand, the Professor’s daughter’s vanity is paid
homage to by the procurement of an out of season red rose. On the other hand,
she is testing the Student’s worthiness as a suitable husband material by sending
him on a quest similar to the ones undertaken by the heroes of the past. But
unlike those heroes of the past, the Student’s horizons are limited to the
borders of his garden. He is incapable of looking beyond the safety offered by
the boundary of what is familiar. He lacks a sense of adventure and romance.
The socio-political landscape of the Victorian Age was dominated by the
middleclass merchants engaged in various trades. The age of knights in shining
armour who dashed off to perform impossible tasks against unimaginable odds was
long past. Wilde seems to mourn the passage of that bygone age of romance and
high ideals in this short story.
In the short story,
there are both animal and human actors. Interestingly, the writer uses pronouns
usually used for people for animals and trees. Not only that, the writer makes
them behave in ways that one expects humans to do and thereby anthropomorphises
them. In the case of the Nightingale, her heroic behaviour and her capacity to
feel empathy and love elevate her to a state of a heroine. While the animals,
especially the Nightingale, understand the human actors, the human actors are
incapable of understanding the creatures around them. The eponymous heroine of
the story, the Nightingale, hears the plight of the Student and it touches her
heart. From the first paragraph certain qualities that are generally associated
with the male and female genders are reversed. Upon seeing him for the first
time, the bird describes him in idealistic terms that are often reserved for
women: “His hair is dark as hyacinth blossom … his lips are red as the rose of
his desire.” The Student has “beautiful” eyes that “fills with tears” at the
drop of a hat. He bemoans his fate and is in need of a hero to do his battles
for him. Yet, he is egoistical. He believes that he is omniscient: “I have read
all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are
mine.” The young man seems to believe because he studied Philosophy he should
either be exempted from such tests as the one the Professor’s daughter is
putting him through or that he should be given a rose on a plate. The writer
creates this subtle impression as a satirical aside on the egotism of many
academics who seem to believe that they deserve special treatment due to their scholarly state.
The Nightingale
idealizes love and she tragically mistakes the Student’s petulant outburst as a
heartfelt cry of love and salutes him as a true lover. Due to her idealism, the
Nightingale sees the world through rose-tinted glasses. That is her tragic flaw
as the heroine of this story.
The Student, on the
other hand, simplifies love to the level of gratification of physical desire
and socio-political conquest. He reiterates the give-and-take nature of his
relationship with the woman of his desire: “If I bring her a red rose, I shall
hold her in my arms and she will lean her head upon my shoulder, and her hand
will be clasped in mine.” However, the Student is not stirred to action even by
this vision of self-gratification. He continues to be mired in impotent
self-pity: I shall sit lonely, and she will pass me by. She shall have no need
of me. Anyone who has read Jane Austen would know that this is usually a fear
that women of that age would harbour at a party. This outburst, however, confirms
to the Nightingale that the Student is indeed “the true lover.” The
Nightingale’s opinion could be read at least in two ways. At one level, this
could be taken as an example of the Nightingale’s ignorance and naiveté and at
another level this could be read as an indication of lack of real love in the Victorian Society. At
this point I would like to remind the readers to read the last section which is
on the Victorian male female relations in the sonnet “London” by William Blake.
The Nightingale thinks that the Student is special because she feels that he
has experienced what she is just feeling.
For the Nightingale
love is more precious than any material wealth. The reader should compare this
view with that of the Professor’s daughter’s view on the jewels she receives
from one of her admirers towards the end of the story. However, one must take
care not to be too harsh on the girl as the world she occupies is vastly
different from the one that the Nightingale is a part of. It is possible for
the Nightingale, being a creature of nature whose life is not shaped by the
Capitalistic socio-economic policies that governed the society the girl is a
member of, to spurn material wealth. The girl, on the other hand, cannot
indulge in that luxury as she depends on the possession of having enough
material wealth for the physical and emotional wellbeing of her as well as of
her future offspring. Contemporary prose works by Charles Dickens and poetry of
William Blake offer rather frightening pictures of the fate of those –
especially women - who did not possess enough material wealth. Therefore, one
might say that she has to - out of necessity – consider love as something that
can be “set forth in the market-place … [which could be] purchased of the merchants
… [and] weighed out in the balance of gold.”
Creatures of nature
such as the little Green Lizard, the Butterfly, and the Daisy, being either
creatures of moderation or lacking the finer feelings of the Nightingale, are
confused by the emotional outbursts of the Student. Some even find his tears
rather ridiculous. The Nightingale, in contrast, is deeply moved and feels
compelled to take some action. She assumes the traditional role of the
knight/hero on the face of the Student’s inaction and “she spread[s] her wings
for flight and sored into the air.” Despite the drab diminutiveness of the
bird, her actions are described in heroic terms. The writer undoubtedly admires
the heroic spirit of the bird. The section “Suddenly … across the garden” is
repeated three times following a convention found in Romances. Upon finding a
rose bush the bird asks for a red rose in exchange of her sweetest song. The
tree regretfully informs that it is incapable of assisting the bird and directs
her to another. It is only in the third attempt does the little bird comes upon
a hibernating red rose bush. It regretfully informs the bird of the
impossibility of granting her wish at that time of the year. But when pressed
it tells the bird that if she were willing to infuse her own blood into its
frozen veins, the bush would be able to grant her wish. Moreover, the bush
tells the bird that it would cost her own life. The Nightingale values her life
but thinks of dying in the service of love the best possible reason for someone
to die. The Nightingale who appreciates beauty sees only that in the Students
and fails to grasp the un-heroic nature of the boy. For her sacrifice, the bird
does not want anything in return. She wants the Student to be “a true lover.”
“Love,” according to the bird is wiser than Philosophy and mightier than Power.
She personifies love and gives it colour and shape. But unfortunately the
Student fails to understand the bird’s request for “he only knew the things
that are written down in books.” Ironically, the Oak Tree, something many
consider inanimate, understands what the bird is saying and is sadden by the
impending loss of the little bird for he is “fond of the little Nightingale.”
Overcome by the sense of impending loss the Oak Tree requests the Nightingale to
sing one last song for it would “feel very lonely” once the bird is gone.
Interestingly, the Oak does not try to prevent the bird from embarking on her
mission. As the song comes to an end the Student takes out a notebook and a lead pencil from his pocket and conducts
a poetic autopsy on the song. He who does not understands the bird’s language
makes assumptions that give rise to several occasions of situational irony. He
loftily grants the song has form, but denies the Nightingale is capable of
feeling, sincerity, and self-sacrifice. The reader knows that bird is capable
all these and more and that at that very moment is about to sacrifice her life
in the service of someone else’s love. In a way, the Student’s accusation that
the song serves no practical purpose is true. However, a work of art need not
serve any utilitarian purpose if it does not choose to. Sadly, the Victorian
Age is a time of utilitarianism. The Student’s criticism of the song invites a comparison between the
sensitivities of the Student and the Oak. At the end of voicing unfounded
accusations and groundless opinions, once again the Student goes back to his
room to lie down on his little pallet-bed and bemoan his fate.
The song the
Nightingale sings to the rose bush has three phases. During the first phase the
song is on a calf love untouched by physical desire. Correspondingly, the rose
that blossoms on the bush is initially white. The writer describes the colour
of the flower at this stage using three similes:
1. Pale
was it, at first, as the mist that hang over the river
2. Pale
as the feet of the morning
3. Silver
as the wings of the dawn.
The bird’s song is so
beautiful that even the “cold crystal Moon leans down and listens.” Yet, the
Student sleeps oblivious to what is happening on the other side of his dorm
window.
The second phase begins
with the bush crying out for the bird to press closer still. Once again this
request follows the Romantic convention and is repeated 3 times in the course
of the story. In the second phase the Nightingale’s song is about love between
the male and female which is intermingled with lust. This is signalled by the
“delicate flush of pink” that comes into the leaves of the rose which the
writer compares to flush on the face of a groom when he kisses the lips of the
bride.
For the third and last
time, once again the bush asks the bird to lean some more for the heart of the
rose is still white. It could be turned red only by an infusion of the heart’s
blood of the little bird. The repetition of the words “bitter” and “wilder”
illustrates the Nightingale’s struggle to finish her undertaking and her
feeling of pain at the thought of her impending death.
The
reason for the wildness of the song,
according to Wilde, is that the bird is singing of love that is perfected by
death which continues even after death. The question that arises at this point
is that whose love the writer is
referring to here, for the Student has shown no sign of being capable of such
passionate love.
The infusion of
Nightingale’s heart’s blood results in a crimson flower with a ruby heart.
Wilde compared the heart of the rose to a ruby – something priceless. The
repetition of the word crimson could
be taken as an indication as a foreshadowing of the impending death of the
little bird. At this point, with her mission accomplished, the Nightingale’s
life force ebbs away. Then she gives “one last burst of music” so hauntingly
beautiful the “white Moon” which was referred to as “cold” and “crystal”
earlier in the story forgets the dawn and lingers on the sky. And the rose, the
fruit of the bird’s sacrifice, hears it and trembles “all over with ecstasy”
and opens “its petals to the cold morning air.” It must be noted that the
mission of the Nightingale (thorn, blood, trembled all over with ecstasy) can
easily be read as a metaphor for a sexual union that results in physical and
emotional fulfilment.
In the end the
Nightingale drops dead with the thorn embedded in her heart, very much like a
hero in the battlefield; however, her song is carried all over the world so
that her name lives on. First, Echo, the nymph hears it and carries it to her
home in Arcadia. There, the shepherds hear the song in their dreams. They
undoubtedly would sing it from then onwards. The song floats through the reeds
of the river. Being the first musical instruments according to the Greek legend
of Pan, the singing reeds carry the song to the sea and pass it onto the waves.
And the waves carry it all over the world.
For the Student,
however, the rose obtained through such sacrifice is only a commodity to be
exchanged for a dance. At noon the Student finally opens the window and looks
out. And when he sees the rose he attributes its sudden appearance to luck. He
is completely ignorant of the sacrifice made by the Nightingale in order to
produce a red rose so that he could win the hand of his love. He notes the
extraordinary beauty of the flower but this observation is immediately followed
by the Rationalistic desire to classify and compartmentalize what he sees: “I
am sure it has a long Latin name.” For him the rose is just a means to an end;
therefore, he unhesitatingly plucks it rushes to meet his “love” in order to
present her with the flower that he has not earned. The girl has given the
Student a mission to determine his
worth; therefore, presenting her with the fruits of the Nightingale’s labour smacks of duplicity.
Next,
the reader is greeted with a domestic vision straight from a painting. It is
interesting that the Professor’s daughter is winding blue silk on a wheel. Both
the colour and the material have aristocratic connections. Her transition from
red – the colour of passion – to blue – the colour of ceremony and reason is
quite symbolic. She is ready to take on her responsibilities as a custodian of
the norms and values of her society upon marrying the Chamberlain’s nephew. The
Student burst upon the Professor’s daughter who is so serenely immersed in her
task and reminds her of her condition and then goes on to tell her what she would do: “You will wear it tonight next to your
heart, and as we dance together it will tell you how I love you.” The last
section – “it will tell you how much I love you” – implies that the Student has
done something more productive than lying on the grass crying and sleeping in
order to earn the rose on his “love’s” behalf, which is quite misleading as we
know. The young woman, however, does not take it kindly to being what to do. So
she rejects the Student’s offering by saying, "I am afraid it will not go
with my dress … and, besides, the Chamberlain's nephew has sent me some real
jewels, and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers. [This
section of the story brings to mind the short story “The Necklace” by Guy de
Maupassant in which Madam Loisel says something which is quite similar to this
to her doting husband.] The reader would most probably see the young woman as a
materialistic social climber. However, it must be noted that without any formal
education that would enable her to be their own persons, the worldview of most
Victorian women was a reflection of their society. The use of the words
“everybody knows” implies that the Professor’s daughter’s opinions are formed
by what is popularly known as “common-sense knowledge” – which according to the
social thinker Louis Althussar is formed by the Ideological State Apparatus in
the service of the status quo. Further, as they were totally dependent on the
men in their lives for everything, it was necessary for women of this period to
marry well. And, the Student, as we know, would not be considered ideal husband
material from any stretch of imagination. Upon hearing her refusal, the Student
throws the rose down into the street and accuses the young woman of being
“ungrateful.” This behaviour shows that the Student has not achieved any
maturity as a result of undertaking the quest as the girl would have expected
him to. He still remains the impotent petulant boy whom the reader has met at
the beginning of the story. It is ironic that he should use the term
“ungrateful” as he himself is suffering from the same malady. In addition, the
term also implies that he has done something for the girl to be grateful, which
he hasn’t. He walks away in high dudgeon. The student adds insult to the injury
by calling love for which the Nightingale has sacrificed her life “a silly
thing”. Moreover, he says that he is returning to more “useful” “true” and
“practical” Logic, Philosophy and Metaphysics forgetting that those very
subjects have not even equipped him with the knowledge to obtain an out of
season rose. It was the love of the Nightingale that has resulted in the birth
of the rose, not Logic, Philosophy, or Metaphysics. In the end he returns to
his tomb-like room and shuts him up again with his great dusty volumes.
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