Attitude towards love in the present society are reflected in the short story, The Nightingale and the Rose. Discuss this statement with particular reference to professor’s daughter. (A model answer to the question number 10 of the O/L English Literature Model Paper – you can now download this answer from lithelp.yolasite.com).
“The Nightingale and the Rose”, a famous short story by Oscar Wilde is an onslaught upon the Victorian tendency to undervalue ideals that used to reinforce the moral and ethical superiority of the humans over the other species. The lovers in the story betrays materialistic attitude towards love through their shallow behaviour which is also symptomatic of the modern society.
In "The Nightingale and the Rose," the young girl is the daughter of the Professor and the object of the student's affections. Although Wilde does not describe the girl physically, the story teaches us much about her character. She does not appreciate the true meaning of love, as we see in the opening paragraph when she demands the student bring her a red rose. This shows she has a superficial understanding of love based on appearances and objects. This idea is also echoed at the end of the story when she rejects the student because the color of the rose he brings her clashes with her dress.
But the girl frowned. “I am afraid it will not go with my dress,” she answered.
This quote also demonstrates two more of the girl's character traits: her fickleness and materialism which are typical of the modern society. Her decision to choose the Chamberlain's nephew because he sends her jewels shows how quickly she changes her affections. In her mind, the girl judges the monetary value of the jewels to be much higher than that of the rose and this proves the nephew loves her more than the student. When called "ungrateful" by the student, the girl proves just how materialistic she is when she ridicules his appearance. Tragically, the student is too naïve to realize she does not represent true love and he turns his back (presumably forever) on matters of the heart.
The boy too, reacts harshly to the nightingale. When she decides to sacrifice her life and sings about her love for the boy, he makes assumptions about her character because he cannot understand what she is saying.
“She has form,” he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove, “that cannot be denied her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not."
Furthermore, the boy accuses the nightingale of lacking "sincerity" and being "selfish." This is ironic because if the boy understood the words of her song, he would realize she is quite the opposite; she demonstrates considerable sincerity and selflessness because she sacrifices her life so he can have a red rose.
Finally, the boy's belief that her song "does not mean anything" or "do any practical good" is harsh because it further belittles her sacrifice. For the nightingale, killing herself is a hugely symbolic act; it demonstrates the strength of her feeling towards the boy and towards the idea of love, more generally.
Thus in "The Nightingale and the Rose," Wilde mocks several aspects of Victorian society which can be equally applied to the modern society. Firstly, through the character of the girl, Wilde satirises contemporary courtship rituals and conceptions of love. That she will only accept a red rose, for example, demonstrates the shallow and materialistic understanding of love among young people of the Victorian middle class. This attitude is also not uncommon in the modern society where offering of a rose by a lover on the Valentine’s day, for example, is considered as token of true love by some girls. Similarly, Wilde further mocks the middle class when the girl refuses the red rose, on the grounds that it does not match her dress.
Secondly, Wilde satirises Victorian society when the Nightingale sings of her pending sacrifice to the student. We see this most clearly in the following lines:
The student could not understand what the Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the things that were written down in books.
In this example, Wilde mocks the Victorian definition of knowledge and suggests that true knowledge and understanding comes from the everyday world, not just academic books. Had the student grasped this idea, he would have realised the Nightingale's sacrifice and, in turn, understood the real meaning of love. Applied to the modern society, the commercialization and branding of love through media, cinema and tele-dramas etc. has created such a confusion in the minds of the younger generation, that ideal romantic love is tended to be regarded as something so pedantic and even ‘foolish’.