Denise Zhang Mona Modiano Honors 394 July 17, 2013

Analyzing Gift and Sacrifice in Oscar Wildes The Nightingale and the Rose All art is quite useless quotes Oscar Wilde; a central figure in aesthetic writing during the Victorian period in England. During the Aesthetic Movement, art was to be seen as beautiful, enticing to the senses and nothing more than that. Aestheticism was not targeted solely through art but as a lifestyle that enhanced ones life and maximized happiness. In one of Wildes well known short stories titled The Nightingale and the Rose, there are ample examples demonstrating the gift exchange culture as well as the concept of sacrifice. Throughout the story, there is a prevalent theme of sacrifice and an underlying theme of misrecognition through a gifting cycle that dissociates the value of objects and their aesthetic values. The story goes like this: A student is crying in the garden after having failed to locate a red rose. He was told by the object of his affection that if presented with a red rose, she would dance with him at the Princes ball. A nightingale observes this event and declares the student to be an honest representation of someone in love. The nightingale makes the decision to go find a red rose for the student and find a red rose bush that is unable to produce red roses due to the harsh winter. The rose bush tells the nightingale that the only way he can produce a red rose is if the nightingale provides him with blood from her heart and sings to him throughout the night. Meanwhile, the student continues to cry in the garden and makes the statement that the nightingale is selfish for singing and is unwilling to sacrifice herself. That night, the

nightingale goes back to the rose bush and pushes a thorn from the bush into her heart while singing. In the morning, the nightingale is dead on the ground and in her place is a glorious red rose. The student is ecstatic to find the rose and plucks it to present to the young woman who is unimpressed by his gesture. The young woman tells the student that the jewels she has received by another are more impressive. The student rejects love and goes back to studying philosophy. As seen, Wilde chooses to use to the nightingale as the sacrificial hero in this short story playing off his belief that man was no longer worthy or capable of achieving any moral deeds as a result of being dehumanized in a materialistic age. The usage of a bird; a delicate and frail creature as a hero represents what man is lacking. The nightingale makes the ultimate decision to sacrifice herself in order to create the rose that will bring the student eternal love. The nightingale is the only one who acknowledges the power of love and its superiority over materialistic goods:
'Here indeed is the true lover,' said the Nightingale. 'What I sing of he suffers: what is joy to me, to him is pain. 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, 'or can it be weighed out in the balance for gold.'

Unfortunately as the story goes, the nightingales death was not appreciated by either the student or the young woman as the rose was rejected and thrown on the ground. Thus, love is destroyed through materialism, a key point that Wilde wanted to make. Misrecognition is observed to be present as the nightingale willingly sacrifices herself to let true love survive: Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a

man?

and additionally, so that the student would see the value within the gift and in return,

pass on those values to the young woman. Sadly, this was not achieved as the student fails to see that the rose was a gift to him. Previously the student had already proclaimed the nightingale to be selfish:
'She has form,' he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove - 'that cannot be denied to her; 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.'

With this in mind, the student does not make the connection that the red rose was a product of the nightingales sacrifice and as a result deteriorates the value of the gift. Relating this concept back to aestheticism in which an objects appearance is the most important factor, the rose is a symbol of natures true beauty. My roses are red,' it answered, 'as red as the feet of the dove, and redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the ocean-cavern. Wildes language depicts the ideal red rose in such detail that the readers can lucidly see it in their minds. The amount of importance placed on the natural beauty of the rose goes along with the theories of Ralph Waldo Emerson who states that flowers are always an appropriate present because a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world. However as we can see from the story plot, this belief is not applicable as the young woman prefers a gift of jewels to the rose.

'I am afraid it will not go with my dress,' she answered; 'and, besides, the Chamberlain's nephew has sent me some real jewels, and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers.' This is in direct contradiction with Emersons statement that rings and jewels are not gifts but apologies for the only true gift is a portion of thyself. However, the gift of the rose was given to the student by the nightingale and so it was therefore a portion of the nightingale that was gifted to the young woman, not a portion of the students self. The student is absorbed in the roses aesthetic value that he fails to see the meaning and properties of the gift. On encounter of the rose, the student exclaims: '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;' According to Lewis Hyde, it is through gratitude that power of the gift is realized. The student is unsuccessful in recognizing any meanings in the red rose and ends up demystifying the gift as he talks about the roses Latin name. It was only at the original donor; the nightingale that the true value of the gift was noticed. The nightingale sacrificed herself to manifest the rose and therefore incorporated a part of herself into the gift. Going back to Emersons theories, the rose was a product of the nightingales labor but its value is misrecognized and the rose is only praised for its raw beauty and the student does not identify the rose as a gift. As mentioned before, the young woman is not content with the beauty of the rose as she compares the roses aesthetic value to that of the jewels. Additionally, she is also fixated on each gifts economic worth as she states that jewels are worth more than flowers. Applying Karl Marxs theories on gift exchange, the young womans argument changes its course as she

discounts the students gift based on its monetary cost. The young woman sees the aesthetic value of each gift as its use value and concludes that the exchange value of the jewels is much higher than the exchange value of the rose. Going back to the concept of misrecognition, the red rose was requested by the young woman at the very start of the story and so the very act of asking for a gift dismisses the object as a true gift but rather a commodity exchange. However the student understood the young womans proposal to be a way to earn her love and so as the student cries in the garden spitting words of anguish and desire, the nightingale misinterprets the real nature of the exchange. Therefore, the relationship between all three characters are confined in an entanglement of misrecognition.