Nightingale And The Rose example essay topic

There are three short stories of Oscar Wilde's that clearly have a common theme. In "The Nightingale and the Rose", a student has a crush on a girl. The girl refuses to dance with him unless he gives her a rose, and there are simply no roses anywhere nearby. There is a nightingale who lives outside the window of the boy, and she believes in love above all things. She makes a deal with the rose-tree, and she must press her breast into a thorn, and sing a song. The nightingale will then create a rose, but she will die.

The student finds the rose, and the girl doesn't even want it because someone else gave her jewels. The student then throws the rose onto the street exclaiming "What a silly thing Love is! It is not half as useful as logic". In "The Devoted Friend", the character Hans is being manipulated by the Miller. The Miller gets flowers, favors, and labor from Hans, all while telling Hans how lucky he is to have such a friend as the Miller. Ultimately, Hans dies of doing the Miller a favor, and even at Hans' funeral, the Miller doesn't even care that Hans is gone.

The only thing he cares about now is that he has no one to give away his broken wheelbarrow to. "The Happy Prince" is a story about a swallow and a statue made of jewels. The statue used to be the prince of the city, but when he passed away, they made him a statue to loom over the city. Now the statue can see the misery and sadness that passes throughout the city everyday. He tries to help everyone, by sending the swallow to give poor people the statue's jewels, gold and gems. Once he has lost all of his precious stones, the mayor decides he is too ugly too keep up, and takes him down.

Materialism often plays a large role in reality and in literature. Characters can be molded and brought to life by the way they treat each other and the way they treat themselves. In many of Oscar Wilde's short stories, materialism oftentimes destroys characters and relationships. In the short story "The Nightingale and the Rose", materialism is used in two different ways. The nightingale does the selfless act of killing herself in order to help the student out, but the student never knows that the nightingale did this. When he is rejected by the girl, he rejects the idea of love, and that idea is everything the nightingale lived and died for.

The nightingale didn't even experience love, she only believed in it so much that she helped the student. The girl shows materialism in its most blatant form when she says. ".. and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers". She denies the boy and his rose because something better, another boy with jewels, came along. The student's materialism comes more in the fact that he doesn't realize what the rose represents. The rose is literally and figuratively the nightingale's heart, but he looks at it as a way to get to the girl. The rose should not be the way to get to her, but he himself should be what makes her like him.

This materialism hurt the student as he decides love is no longer useful, and it kills the nightingale who gave up everything for love the student doesn't want. "The Devoted Friend" is a short story where materialism takes on a form of manipulation. Hans is a sweet man, who is taken advantage of by the Miller. The Miller takes flowers from Hans' garden, asks him to do favors, and tries to make up for it by telling Hans' how lucky he is to have a friend such as him. When Hans dies trying to get a doctor in the bitter cold for the Miller's son, the Miller doesn't even show sadness at the funeral". 'A great loss to me at any rate,' answered the Miller, 'why, I had as good as given him my wheelbarrow, and now I really don't know what to do with it.

It is very much in my way at home, and it is in such bad repair that I could not get anything for it if I sold it. I will certainly take care not to give away anything again. One certainly suffers for being generous. ' " This statement shows how the Miller never really considered Hans his true friend, and was certainly not being a true friend to Hans. The Miller only needed Hans for favors, and Hans ultimately dies because of his own generosity. The cold Mayor represents the materialism in "The Happy Prince".

The Happy Prince is a statue made of gold and gems, and he gives away his precious jewels to save the poor people of his town. As he strips himself of these jewels, he becomes more bare and less attractive to the village people. Finally, the Mayor decides "as he is no longer beautiful, he is no longer useful", and takes the statue down. The statue had represented goodness, humanitarianism, and charity, but the Mayor saw a "shabby" monument and took it down. Materialism is an ongoing theme throughout these three stories, and it takes on a different form each time. In the three Wilde stories, the figures of the nightingale, the prince, and Hans, who all denote selfless and compassionate characteristics, are ironically the ones who are taken for granted and ultimately destroyed in the end..