COURSE : SHORT STORIES FOR EFFECTIVE

COMMUNICATION

COURSE CODE : 16ELCE4

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UNIT : II

TOPIC : THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

Mrs P. Subha
Assistant Professor, Department of English
 NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE
By
Oscar Wilde

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Content

About author

Summary

Setting and Characters

Themes
 Writing style
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About author

Name: Oscar Wills Wilde

Born: 16 October 1854,Dublin, Ireland.

 Died: 30 November 1900 (aged 46) Paris, France.

 Occupation: Author, poet, playwright

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Period: Victorian era

Literary movement: Aestheticism

Alma mater: Trinity College, Dublin; Magdalen College, Oxford

 Masterpiece: The Importance of Being Earnest
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Works

Poems:

The Happy Prince And Other Tales

Dorian Gray

The House Of Pomegranates

The Ballad of Reading Goal

Plays:

Lady Windermere’s Fan

A Woman of No Importance

An Ideal Husband
 The Importance of Being Earnest
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Novel: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Articles: “The Decay of Lying”. “The Soul of Man under Socialism”

Short stories: The Canterville Ghost The Portrait of Mr W.H.

Collections: Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories The Happy Prince
and Other Stories. A House of Pomegranates

Poems: The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Plays: The Duchess of Padua A Florentine

 Tragedy: An Ideal Husband
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Some famous questions of Wilde

 “I have nothing to declare except my genius”.

 “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes”.

 “A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not

love her”.
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Summary

A student of Philosophy falls in love with a girl.

She demands red roses in order to dance with her.

The student is bereft of red roses in his garden that’s why he starts crying.

His lamenting is heard by a nightingale in her nest.

She said, “Here at last is a true lover.”

The nightingale looks for a red rose diligently but she couldn’t.
 A rose tree tells her, “ you must build it out of music by moonlight, and
stain it with your own heart’s-blood by pressing your heart against a
thorn.”
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The bird does so and grows a beautiful red rose by sacrificing her life.

Then the student plucks it and goes to the girl where she refuses and
says that she is gifted real jewels by a rich man.

She says, “everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers.”

He threw the rose into the street, where it fell into the gutter, and a
cartwheel went over it.
 He says, “What a silly thing Love is, It is not half as useful as Logic.”
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Setting and Characters

The story is set in a garden of fantasy – it is full of talking creatures

and trees; the major characters are the student and the
Nightingale.
 In minor: there are many insects; butterflies and salamanders,
many plant and trees, the professor’s girl and the lizard.
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Genre of this story and its
characteristics:

Fairy tales:

- fairies play a part

-contain supernatural or magical elements

- children’s stories
 - full of veiled comments on life
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Characteristics

1) personification of birds, insects, animals and trees

2) vivid, simple narration – typical of the oral tradition of fairy tales

3) repetitive pattern
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Themes

✓ Theme of love

✓ Theme of sacrifice
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Theme of Love

“Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it and wanton love
corrupteth and embaseth it.”
 The boy and the girl both are wanton lovers.

 The student says, “If I bring her a red rose she will dance with me till
dawn.

 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.”

 The girl says, “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.”
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Theme of Sacrifice

The Nightingale is a true friend of a true lover.

She was in search of a true lover. She says, “Here indeed is the
true lover,”
 She sacrifices her life to assist the love and to make it perfect.

 She says, “Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,”

 The Nightingale’s last desire, she says, “All that I ask of you in
return is that you will be a true lover..”
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Writing Style

Genre of this story is fairies play

Children’s story

Full of indirect comments on life

Personification

Similes are abundantly used

 Symbolism in the story
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Personification

Personification of birds: (The Nightingale)

Personification of Insects: (A lizard and a butterfly)

 Personification of Trees: (oak tree, daisy and rose tree)
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Similes
 “His hair is dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as
the rose of his desire; but passion has made his face like pale
ivory, and sorrow has set her seal upon his brow.”

 She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow
she sailed across the garden.

 As white as the foam of the sea,

 as yellow as the hair of the mermaiden who sits upon an amber

throne,

 As red as the feet of the dove,

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Symbolism

➤ Red rose:

True love, which needs constant nourishment of passions of

the lovers.

➤ In Story:
 The threw the rose into the street, where it fell into then
gutter, and a cartwheel went over it.
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Symbolism

➤ Lizard:

Cynic/pessimist, a person who sees little no good in anything

and who has no belief in human progress.

➤ In Story:
 “Why is he weeping?” asked a little Green Lizard, as he ran
past him with his tail in the air.

 “how very ridiculous!” and the little Lizard, who was something
of a cynic, laughed outright.
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Symbolism

➤ Nightingale:

A truthful, devoted pursuer of love, who dares to sacrifice his

own precious life.

➤ In Story:
 All night long she sang with her breast against the thorn
she kept on singing,

 the thorn went deeper and deeper into her breast,

 until the rose sucked all her blood.

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Symbolism

➤Student:
 Not a true lover, ignorant of love, not persistent in pursuing love.

 He a wanton and did not know even the ABC of “LOVE”.

 He was in want of only one night with the said girl.

 He says, “If I bring her a red rose she will dance with me till dawn.

 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.”
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The End