TLT-Grade 8

THE NIGHTINGALE AND ROSE NOTES

Key Facts
Full Title: ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’
When Written: 1880s
Where Written: London, England
When Published: 1888
Genre: Fairy tale, short story, satire
Setting: A garden in an unspecified time and place
Climax: The Nightingale dies just as she creates the perfect red rose
Antagonist: The Student, as well as the larger value systems he embodies
Point of View: Third-person omniscient
Story Structure
- structured around the main event – the deadly sacrifice a nightingale makes for Love
- the short story is also constructed using numerous fairy-tale elements such as:
 The natural world (birds, animals, insects, trees) feelings and concepts are personified
and given human traits.
 The allusion to the use of magic: the nightingale needs to perform a ritual for the tree to
create a red rose.
 The use of the magical number three: the bird goes to three trees and sings three songs the
night she dies.
- the story has an unconventional ending for a fairy-tale, as the protagonist’s sacrifice
proves to be in vain because the rose she created at the cost of her life does not bring the
two lovers together.
Titel
- The title of the short story indicates that the narrative is a fairy-tale
- there may be a hidden symbolism behind it
Beginning
- The short story begins directly, in media res (in the middle of events) with the intrigue: a
young Student needs a red rose to be able to dance with the woman he loves:
“She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,” cried the young Student;
“but in all my garden there is no red rose.” From her nest in the holm-oak tree the
Nightingale heard him, and she looked out through the leaves, and wondered.
Middle
- The middle of the short story includes the rising action which follows the Nightingale
after she decides to help the Student get the red rose that the woman he loves required.
- The writer introduces the magical number three, as the Nightingale travels the garden
until she reaches the third rose tree after the first and second do not make red roses but
white and yellow ones.
- Then, the test element is also introduced marking a tension point. The Nightingale’s
devotement to the idea of love and to helping the Student cost her, her life.
Ending
- The story ends with a sad irony. 
- In the falling action, the Student awakes, finds the rose and runs to offer it to the woman
he loves without ever knowing about the Nightingale’s sacrifice.
- However, the Professor’s daughter rejects both the red rose and the Student, for the riches
presented to her by another wealthy suitor.
Einführung
- The Professor's daughter asks the Student for a red rose.

Rising Action

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- The Nightingale hears the Student crying for a red rose.
- The Nightingale searches for a red rose but can not find one.
- She learns she can make a red rose by sacrificing her life.
- She asks the Student to be a "true lover" in exchange.
- The Student doesn't understand and critiques her singing.
Climax
- The Nightingale gives her life to create a beautiful rose.
Falling Action
- The Student takes the rose to the Professor's daughter.
Resolution
- She rejects him, and he throws the rose away.
- A fairy-tale,carries a universal and grave message
- This story teaches us that sacrifice, whether for love or something else should be done out
of pure necessity and it should be appreciated.
- The student did not understand how the rose came to be, however he gave up on dream of
love hastily.
- He did not appreciate the fact that his cries were answered which shows that no one
should exaggerate need because others may be willing to help even if it burdens
themselves.
- It also emphasizes on how hasty decisions in the world of romance can lead to sadness
and consequences not worth the outcome.
- The nightingale was naive and hastily gave her life to a cause that could have been solved
in other ways.
- The language is beautifully poetic and also exemplifies many examples of
personification, irony, and figurative language. 
Style
In style, "The Nightingale and the Rose" draws heavily on European folklore and fairy tales,
including the work of Hans Christian Andersen.
Cross-cultural Influences
Persian poetry and folklore tells a similar story of a nightingale staining a rose with its blood,
but in this tradition, the rose itself is the object of the nightingale's love. British fascination
with the Middle East and Asia was running high in the 19th century as a result of
imperialism, and writers and artists frequently borrowed from or depicted these regions in
their work.
Themes
- The main themes are sacrifice, love of love and materialism.
- narrative can also be interpreted as a satire to Romanticism, as its end shows a painful
moral: love involves risks and sacrifices and does not always triumph.
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 beloved.
Theme Love of love
- The theme of love of love is also explored
- The bird sets off to help a Student in love (a practical example of love), the bird seems
also very inspired by the idea of love itself, which the Nightingale describes in almost
absolute terms: 

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“Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine
opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the market-place. It may
not be...”
-‘She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and girl.’ Singing about love
-‘…grew her song, for she sang of the birth of passion in the soul of a man and woman.’
Singing about the passion of love
-‘…for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.’
Talking of sacrificial love.
Theme of 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.
Theme of 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.
Theme of Human Hypocrisy and Deceit
- Through the character of the young Student and his beloved, writer introduces duality
and deceitfulness in people.
- Though he 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.
Theme of Sacrifice
- Theme of sacrifice is solely explored in the short story through the character of the
Nightingale
- The altruistic bird illustrates willpower and the capacity of self-sacrifice in the name of an
idea and for the sake of others
- The Student lamenting his fate of being unable to be with his beloved because he does not
have a red rose, leads her to sacrifice her time, songs and life in quest for the rose
- the Nightingale immediately relates to him and understands his sorrow
Theme of Materialism
- Explored in the short story through the human characters: the Student, the Professor’s
daughter, and the Chamberlain’s nephew
- All these characters are materialistic in some sense
- The Student evokes the rational side of materialism as he needs to see a practical end in
all endeavour as he needs his love to manifest at the practical level
- The Girl after the riches of the world
Setting
set in a timeless, placeless fairy-tale setting, in a time of princes and balls
takes place in a magical garden where most of the natural elements seem to speak and think
Physical Setting
- The main physical setting is represented by the garden the Nightingale lives
- where the Student also has his room
- Another element of the physical setting is the Professor’s house, where the woman the
student desires lives in

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- The physical setting of the garden is that it is animated and personified; the trees and
animals talk, think and feel, just like human beings
- The author also offers very vivid descriptions of these natural elements, such as:
“Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She passed
through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed across the...”

Social Setting
- Social setting illustrates two worlds, the world of men and the world of plants and
animals which mirrors that of men, but is filled with certain magical and idealistic traits
- In the world of animals and plants, like in the world of men, there are some beings who
are idealistic (the Nightingale), some who are cynical (the Lizard), while other elements
show friendship, pain, pity (the trees, the Nightingale).
Point of View
- A third-person account rendered by a storyteller outside the action
- Narrator has extended knowledge on most of the characters
- Knows what the Nightingale and other natural elements think and feel, unlike the Student,
who is incapable of grasping the bird’s message:
The Student looked up from the grass, and listened, but he could not understand what the
Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the things that are written down in books.
But the Oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of the little nightingale who
had built her nest in his branches.
- The narrator also knows uses the Student's perspective at the end of the short story:
“It is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of
things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact,
it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to...”
Language
- extremely descriptive and full of figures of speech;
- choice of words fairly simple, related to feelings and natural elements - story is intended to
children as audience making understanding of the text easy
- author has capitalised common nouns such as: the Student, the Professor, Love, Power,
Life, the Nightingale, the Tree and so forth providing a fixed identity and personifying
objects and animals
- no dialogue lines, instead writer has used direct speech in quotations
- The language of the story is descriptive and full of figures of speech
- The choice of words is fairly simple, related to feelings and natural elements
- Wilde has capitalised common nouns such as the Student, the Professor, Love, Power, Life,
the Nightingale, the Tree to emphasise their typology (in the case of the student) or their
personification (in the case of natural elements, feelings, and concepts).
Literary Techniques
The story abounds in figures of speech which embellish the text
1. Imagery 6. Dramatic Irony
2. Alliteration 7. Foreshadowing.
3. Similes 8. Hyperbole
4. Metaphors and personifications 9. Irony
5. Repetition 10. Inversion
The text abounds in personifications of natural elements, which also form metaphors at times.
Imagery
Imagery in the story helped to enhance the romantic feel and understanding in the story.
Imagery is created through the use of descriptive words with the aim of conveying certain
general images in fiction. 

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- Throughout the story, the reader can visualise the happenings, as the author used
comparison as the major technique
Most of the imagery is related to natural elements e.g.“My roses are white,” it answered;
-“as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain.” [Pg.41]
-‘as yellow as the hair of the mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower
than the daffodil that blooms in the meadow’ [Pg.42]
-‘and he threw the rose into the street, where it fell into the gutter, and
a cart-wheel went over it’ [Pg.45]
Hyperbole 
- Purposeful exaggeration of something to emphasize something.
- ‘She will dance so lightly that her feet will not touch the floor’ [Pg.42 ]
- ‘Here is the reddest rose in all the world’ [Pg.45 ]
Inversion 
- Order of the words reversed to achieve a particular effect. 
- ‘ She passed through the grove like a shadow and like a shadow she sailed across the
garden.”
Foreshadowing
Making Predictions about what may happen later in the story; ominous and looming death of
the Nightingale
‘Press closer, little Nightingale, or the Day will come before the rose is finished.’
Alliteration 
- Repetition of consonant sound to create a weak or smooth sound effect.
- She swept over the garden like a shadow. (repetition of S sound – shows the swiftness of
her movement) [Pg.43 ]
- Wilde crafted the story loading with underlying meanings with new shapes and shades
under his wonderful lines loading text with figurative language enriching his motto: ‘art
is for art’s sake’ creating artifacts engraved with the beautiful gems of art
Personification 
Giving human qualities to things and animals. 
- Natural elements and concepts are also personified by attributing them human traits: they
speak, they feel, they think, they are wise or in some other humanly way
- Given that all these elements are personified, makes it hard to identify numerous
examples of personification in each page of the story.
-‘Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it,’ [Pg.41 last para.]
- ‘the tree shook its head.’ [Pg.42 Para.2]
- The Oak Tree and felt sad,…’ [Pg.43 ]
-‘Sing me one last song,’ he whispered; ‘I shall feel very lonely when you are gone.’ [Pg.43 ]
- ‘The white moon leaned down and listened…heard it,’ [Pg.44 ]
- Personification is first suggested through capitalisation of the names of the natural elements,
feelings and concepts, such as “Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and
mightier than Power, though he is mighty.”
- Personification is also seen in the story as the trees and birds take on human like qualities.
- This is seen especially when the Nightingale feels empathy for the student
Simile 
The most frequently used stylistic device is comparison: using ‘as’ and ‘like’ or ‘than’. 
‘his hair as dark as the hyacinth- blossom and lips are as red as the rose of his
desire.’[Pg.43]
-‘Passion has made his face like pale ivory’. [Pg.41]
- ‘ as white as the foam of the sea’. [Pg.42 ]
- ‘It is more precious than emeralds,’ [Pg.41 ]
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Anthropomorphism
- Wilde uses anthropomorphism throughout the story to create a fairy-tale landscape
- animals and elements of the natural world speak and act like humans
-invites readers to suspend their disbelief and revisit their assumptions about the differences
between humans and nature
Irony Situational Irony/ Talking Plants:
- Irony - the Nightingale died in vain
- The irony in the story is very relevant. Situational irony is seen when the student collects
the rose and goes off to find his true love, instead of finding it he is greeted with rejection.
- It is sad and ironic how the bird gives her life for love and then the student decides that
love is not worth the trouble, which is the opposite of what we expect to happen.
Dramatic Irony/ Imagery
‘Well upon my word…cart-wheel went over it.’ [Pg.45]
Allegory
- A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a
moral or political one. It is a parallel or a parable
- The Nightingale and the Rose is an allegory of selflessness and selfishness often claimed
as Wilde's own agony and battle to find a place for his own feelings in this society.
Symbols
- Nightingale -  symbolizes goodness, virtue, sacrifice and difficulty associated with love
compassion, connection, and a motherly care
- The Rose - true love and true art, sacrifice and difficulty associated with love
- The oak tree – wisdom
- The girl - materialism and hypocrisy
- The Student - cynicism as he can not appreciate beauty, naivety
- Lizard – cynic, a person who sees little or no good in anything
- Butterfly – curiosity
- Daisy – purity
- Cartwheel – materialism
- The nightingale is understood as a sign of the coming spring, its song ushering in new
leaves after the winter. 
Figurative
Example
Language

I've read all that the wise men have written, and
hyperbole all the secrets of philosophy, but my life is
wretched because of a red rose.
Night after night I have told his story to the stars,
personification
and now I see him.
metaphor Death is a great price to pay for a red rose…
She passed through the grove like a shadow, and
simile
sailed across the garden.

Characterisation of the Nightingale

- The most important character in the short story is the Nightingale, who functions as the
heroine or the protagonist.
- The Nightingale is a bird, but she is personified by Wilde, who gives her speech, thoughts
and feelings like those of a human being.

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- Except that the Nightingale is a female bird, the outer characterisation of the
protagonist also informs us that “her voice was like water bubbling from a silver jar” and
that she has a “nest in the holm-oak tree”.
Inner characterisation
- The bird’s inner characterisation reveals that her most important traits are empathy and
altruism/self-sacrifice.
- Empathy is revealed from the very beginning, when she is impressed by the Student’s
love pains and seems to be the only one who understands him: 
“Here at last is a true lover,” said the Nightingale. “Night after night have I sung of him,
though I knew him not; night after night have I told his story to the stars, and now I see
him.”; “But the Nightingale understood the secret of the Student’s sorrow, and she sat silent
in the oak-tree, and thought about the mystery of Love.”
- The bird has a high, idealistic opinion of love, considering this feeling a value, something
priceless:
Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine
opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the market-place. It may
not be purchased of the merchants, nor can it be weighed out in the balance for gold.”
- The Student’s suffering has such a strong effect on the Nightingale
- she first proves to be altruistic, as she decides to set off and help him by looking for a red
rose in the garden.
Student’s hypocrisy lack of self- knowledge.
‘So he returned…great dusty book, and began to read.’ [Pg.45]
Theme of materialism, intellectualism and emotion/ Theme of Love
‘What a silly thing Love is,…Metaphysics’ [Pg.45]
‘…a lead-pencil out of his pocket.’ Emphasizes on the boy’s cold-heartedness, fickle shallow
and feelingless nature.
Quotes
1. ‘Here at last is a true lover...Night after night have I sung of him, though I knew him not: night
after night have I told his story to the stars, and now I see him. His hair is as dark as the
hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are as red as the rose of his desire.’
Related Characters: The Nightingale (speaker), The Student [Pg.41 Para.3]
Themes: Love And Sacrifice, Art And Idealism
Symbol: The Red Rose
When the Nightingale first overhears the Student talking about his need for a red rose,
she sees him as the embodiment of everything she sings about. Her remark that she sang
about him even before meeting him even suggests that her songs have created this real-world
manifestation of idealized love. In the end, of course, the Student will prove to be anything
but a perfect lover, but this idea that art can make the ideal real is vindicated in the
Nightingale's creation of the rose. Her physical description of the Student, meanwhile, further
emphasizes her affinity with the world of art and symbols; unlike the Student, who tends to
speak literally, the Nightingale frequently uses similes and other forms of figurative
language.
2. ‘The Student looked up from the grass and listened, but he could not understand what the
Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the things that are written down in books.’
Related Characters: The Nightingale, The Student
Related Themes: Love, Materialism Intellectualism and Emotion
Related Symbols: Red Rose
Explanation and Analysis
When the Nightingale explains how she intends to get the Student his rose, the Student
responds with literal incomprehension. Interestingly, Wilde attributes this to the Student's

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learning, suggesting that his knowledge and rationality are preventing him from grasping
deeper emotional truths—most notably, the love that the Nightingale has just been extolling.
The Student's intellectualism, in other words, is actually hindering his ability to understand
the world around him (and especially the motivations of others). Relatedly, it is also
impacting his ability to experience life fully and richly: one of the things the Student can't
understand is the Nightingale telling him to "be happy." [Pg.43]
‘She has form...but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all
style, without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks merely of music, and
everybody knows that the arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes
in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.’ [Pg.43]
Related Characters: The Student (speaker), The Nightingale
Related Themes: Love, Materialism Intellectualism and Emotion,
Explanation and Analysis
The Student's response to the song the Nightingale sings for the Oak-tree is ironic on
multiple levels. First, and most obviously, the Student's claim that the Nightingale is selfish
runs counter to the entire plot of Wilde's story. The Student's misinterpretation of the
Nightingale's song is, therefore, a fundamental misreading of her entire character—not to
mention, of course, his own, since the story's conclusion suggests that it is he himself who
lacks emotional ‘sincerity.’ His criticisms, though, are in keeping with those often leveled at
Wilde himself, since the emphasis on "art for art's sake" seemed to prioritize style over
meaning or ‘practical good.’ In ‘The Nightingale and the Rose,’ however, Wilde suggests
that this objection is misguided, because the beauty of the Nightingale's song (i.e. its style) is
inseparable from the love that inspires it and is expressed within it.
- Ironic as the student himself lack the emotional depth. He holds against Nightingale to
lack genuine feelings begins taking noted instead of appreciation her.
3. ‘If you want a red rose...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.’ [Pg.43]
Characters: The Rose-tree (speaker), The Nightingale
Themes: Love and Sacrifice, Art And Idealism
Symbol: The Red Rose
Although the Nightingale eventually succeeds in finding a tree who can provide her with a
red rose, she quickly learns that creating the rose will require sacrificing her life. The
passage, then, underscores the idea that true love is selfless—primarily in the sense that it
is centred on the happiness of another, even at considerable cost to oneself. The Rose-
tree's description of taking the Nightingale's blood into his own "veins," however, implies
another way of thinking about love and self-sacrifice; if romantic love is a union or
merging of two people, the emotion itself necessarily involves losing or giving up parts
(or all) of oneself.
The process of creating the rose, however, is not only about love—it is also about art. In
particular, the idea of "building" the rose from song reflects the story's broader ideas about
the intrinsic value of art. By expressing an ideal, the Nightingale is also giving it a real (and,
in this case, physical) presence in the world.
4. ‘Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her
song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.’
Related Characters: The Nightingale
Related Themes: Love
Related Symbols: Red Rose
Explanation and Analysis

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As she sings the rose into existence, the Nightingale describes several different types or stages of
love, culminating in the sacrificial love mentioned here. This process gives the symbolism of the rose
an added layer: while red roses in general are popularly associated with romance, this particular rose
is imbued with (and created by) all the kinds of love the Nightingale celebrates in her songs. That's
nowhere clearer than in this passage, where the subject of the Nightingale's song mirrors, in real time,
the sacrifice she herself is making.
The Nightingale's love is therefore ‘perfected by Death’ partly in the sense that her death makes the
perfect love she is singing about a reality—not only in her actions, but also in the symbol of the rose.
In a broader sense, though, death ‘perfects’ love because it is the most extreme act of selflessness
possible—one that involves completely relinquishing selfhood. That said, the passage also suggests
that dying in this way gives the Nightingale a kind of immortality, since her love (and art) survive her
—if only in Wilde's story.
‘What a wonderful piece of luck...here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all
my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name.’ [Pg.44]
Characters: The Student (speaker)
Themes: Love And Sacrifice, Art And Idealism
Symbol: The Red Rose
The morning after the Nightingale's death, the Student wakes up to find the rose she has
created on a branch outside his window. His response is disappointing. Juxtaposed with the
Nightingale's death, the Student's words seem shallow and self-centred; given how
miserable he had claimed to be just a day earlier, he ought to be overjoyed to find the rose,
but he instead seems to take it as a mildly pleasant surprise. He also, of course, mistakenly
attributes the appearance of the flower to ‘luck,’ further underscoring his inability to read
the world around him. Most frustratingly of all, he takes the rose's beauty as a sign that it
must have a "long Latin name." This implies an inability to appreciate love (or art) on its
own terms, since the Student needs to ‘translate’ his enjoyment into rational and scientific
language in order to justify it. Also emphasises on the superficiality of his love.
- ‘wonderful piece of luck’ proves his self-centred and shallow nature he is not overjoyed
given that he was desperate the previous day for a red rose. Hence, he attributes the
appearance to pure ‘luck’.
- ‘long Latin name’ implies his inability to appreciate love or art on its own terms. Since he
needs to ‘translate’ has enjoyment into rational and scientific language in order to justify
it.