The story “The Nightingale and the Rose” is written by OscarWilde. It was published in 1888, in a collection of children’s story named
as, The Happy Prince and the Other Tales. Although it is a fairy-tale, the
massage it carries is universal and grave. Let’s find out some major themes and
techniques found in the text.
Themes
You may watch the video on themes or continue reading:
Theme of love
The story
unveils the unconditional and selfless love of the nightingale who
sacrifices her life on behalf of love. It shows that true love needs sacrifices
and commitment. Further, the hollowness of the conditional love is explored
through the character of the young student and his fiancée.
Reason vs. passion
Reasoning
belongs to logic and education where passion goes with strong emotions. Through
the character of the young student, the reader can explore an immature
character whose drive to passion is swift and his analytics about the situation
which he was in is rather pessimistic.
Education
The writer
seems critical about the contemporary education which nourished more head than
the heart. It reveals that theoretical education creates an unbalanced
individual. It further says the necessity of aesthetic values to nourish
emotional and humanistic values in people.
Human hypocrisy and deceit
Through the
character of the young student and his fiancée, writer introduces duality and
deceitfulness in people. Though the young man craves for a red rose, his
necessity is driven by his passion not by the true love. Whereas the girl
breaks her promise before materialistic gains showing her deceitfulness and
hypocrisy.
Materialism versus spirituality
Literary Techniques.
Language
The
language of the story is very descriptive and full of figures of speech;
yet the choice of words is fairly simple, related to feelings and natural
elements. The story is intended to children readership. Therefore the overall
understanding of the text is not hard. Interestingly, the author has
capitalised common nouns such as: the Student, the Professor, Love, Power,
Life, the Nightingale, the Tree… etc. giving them a fixed identity and
personifying objects and animals. There are no dialog lines, instead writer has
used direct speech in quotations.
Fairy-tale Elements
·
Good
character and evil characters.
·
Royalty
vs poverty.
·
Magic
and enchantments.
·
Frequent
use of personification.
·
Use
of symbols and motifs.
·
Vivid
and simple narration.
Symbols
·
Nightingale
- symbolizes goodness and virtue and
sacrifice, and
·
The
Rose - true love and true art.
·
The
oak tree – wisdom
·
The
girl - materialism and hypocrisy.
·
The
student - cynicism as he can’t appreciate beauty.
·
Lizard
– cynic, a person who sees little or no good in anything
·
Butterfly
– curiosity
·
Daisy
– purity
·
Cartwheel
– materialism
Imagery
Throughout the story, the reader can visualise
the happenings, as the author used comparison as the major technique, the
reason may be the collection of short stories is intended for children
readership.
ex: “
as yellow as the hair of the mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and
yellower than the daffodil that blooms in the meadow”
“ and he threw the rose into the street, where
it fell into the gutter, and a cart-wheel went over it”
Personification
Giving human qualities to things
and animals.
Ex: “the tree shook its head.”
“Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it,”
“The white moon heard it,”
Simile
In the story, the most frequently
used stylistic device is comparison: using ‘as’ and ‘like’ or ‘than’.
Ex: “Passion has made his face like
pale ivory”
“as white as the foam of the sea”
“It is more precious than emeralds,”
Hyperbole
Purposeful exaggeration of
something to emphasize something.
Ex: “She will dance so lightly that her
feet will not touch the floor”
“Here is the reddest rose in all the world.”
Inversion
Order of the words reversed to
achieve a particular effect.
Ex: She passed through the grove like a
shadow and like a shadow she sailed across the garden.”
Alliteration
Repetition of consonant sound to
create a weak or smooth sound effect.
Ex: She
swept over the garden like a shadow. (repetition of S sound – shows the
swiftness of her movement)
Although
the story intended for children, Wilde has crafted the story loaded with
underlying meanings. Whenever you read the story, you may find new shapes and
shades under his wonderful lines. The text is loaded with figurative language
enriching his motto: ‘art is for art’s sake’ – that means his creations are
artifacts which engraved with the beautiful gems of art.
There are
more techniques which are not mentioned, can you find them? So, comment them
for the enlightenment of the readers. Share this article if you find it useful.
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