The Nightingale and The Rose - Oscar Wilde

The Nightingale and the Rose

Oscar Wilde

      Oscar Finagle Wild was an Irish poet and write. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights. He is famous for his epigrams, plays, novel as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.

    

     Oscar Wilde’s parents were successful Anglo-Irish Dublin intellectuals; Wilde has read great writers and proved himself as an outstanding classicist. His prominent works were “English Renaissance in Art” which is a book of poems and lectures in United States, another one was his master piece “The Importance of Being Earnest”. His last work was “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

The Nightingale and the Rose

    This short story is about a sacrifice of nightingale and desire of a boy. The boy is in his professor’s party and dance with his daughter but her daughter put a condition that if the boy will bring a red rose than only she will dance with her. There are interesting dialogues like when boy could not find the red rose he said,

“On what little things,

Does the happiness depend!”

     

    When he was weeping because he was not able to dance with his love, four characters from nature has started talking about him. They were a little green Lizard, a Butterfly, a Daisy and Nightingale. When they come to know that a boy is weeping for a red rose they found it ridiculous. Only a nightingale was not laughing because she was able to understand the feelings of boy.

    

    Nightingale could not find the red rose, but rose tree has given her a solution that she has to give her heart blood and sing to the rose tree with her breast against a thorn, and her heart blood will flow into the veins of rose tree. Nightingale has done that, the rose was there on next morning but she was not there to see it.

   

   Next morning boy went to see the girl and offer her a red rose but the girl denied to take it by saying that the rose doesn’t match with her dress and accepted a real jewel necklace which was a gift for her by a rich boy. Boy has argued with her for convincing her, but he failed. At last he thought that

"What a silly thing love is"

and he threw the rose in gutter where a cart wheel went into it and again he starts reading books, he preferred logic and philosophy than emotions of love.

     

    The story is very tragic on the part of nightingale, or we can say nature. The boy seems selfish and self centred that he doesn’t care about the sacrifice of a bird and just threw the rose in gutter. He was ditched by a girl and dropped the idea of love but he didn’t get inspired by Nightingale who was the true lover. In another words, for him “love” was getting the person he loves, but the real meaning is “sacrifice” for the one you love and care.

     

    There is a paradox in story, Nightingale sacrifices and girl demands. The girl was rational and practical that she chooses a jewel necklace rather than a rose. Boy was infatuated by girl and his infatuation blinded him that he was not able to see the sacrifice of bird. We could say that the nature is still kind and lovely but human beings have become more rational.

     

    Love is not easy to understand, a boy was an immature school boy and for him love is not his cup of tea. The story contains underline satire on love and sacrifice that it does not matter how much you love or you sacrifice for someone, there is no value of it. People always look the world by putting themselves at the centre and forget your emotions and feelings towards them.

Here is the animated version of the story:

        

All My Sons - A play by Arthur Miller

All My Sons

-        By Arthur Miller

                 Arthur Miller was an American essayist and playwright. He has created some of the most memorable stage plays in American literature such as “Death of a Salesman”, “The Crucible” and “A View from the Bridge”. During World War II, his writings become more successful. In 1947, his first Broadway success was a powerful drama titled “All My Sons”, earned his critical and popular claim. It earned him international recognition.

All My Sons

            This play is a Shakespearean Tragedy with modern language. This play has various elements like it has ideal characters and also the characters with lack of patriotism.

           The play opens with the introduction of a nuclear family, Joe and Kate Keller are husband-wife and they have two children Chris and Larry. Joe has a manufacturing plant with the partnership of his friend Steve Deever.  Ann Deever is daughter of Steve and girlfriend of Larry. Keller and Deever’s manufacturing plant has a very profitable contract with the USA, supplying air parts. One morning a shipment of defective parts came at the plant.  Deever was confused about this that what they should do but Keller has told him he is not able to be there because of illness so he instructed him to weld the cracks and supply them and Deever has done that.

           Later it was discovered that the defective parts has caused twenty one planes to crash and their pilots to die. Both Deever and Keller have arrested, but Keller has played safe that he convinced police that he was not there when the defective parts were supplied and he blamed Deever for the whole matter proved that Deever is responsible for all this and Keller is innocent.

          Larry had a faith in his father but after getting information about the first conviction and he got depressed he wrote Ann to not wait for him and he went on the mission and crashed his plane. His dead body was not found and he was reported missing.

         Three years have been past but still Larry was missing, Ann and Christ were in contact and wanted to marry but the problem was Kate Keller’s superstition that Larry would come back.

          Ann’s brother George has went to meet his father Steve Deever in jail and he comes to know that his father is innocent, George talked about this to Christ and finally Kate has accepted that his husband is responsible for plane crash, and Joe Keller’s guilt has proved it too. Christ has strong belief that his father is not guilty but now he was also aware of this reality. Ann has shown the letter of Larry which he has given to Ann before he went for mission. It was not letter but a suicide note. Joe Keller was feeling very guilty because of him Larry has committed suicide and he understood that all the dead pilots were his sons. He decided to surrender and went in his room to take his coat, but a sound of gunshot is heard and Joe killed himself.

            This one act play has various themes which give us a glimpse of that time and people. The very important one is “The American Dream”. It was all about self centeredness and money minded mentality of people that how they were ready to cheat and blame anyone for money. It was a condition of twentieth century Americans, that how they were living. Rationality was one of the very important parts of life; idealism was vanished away and for lavish lifestyle people wanted money from anywhere for any cost. This was all about modern man of age. “All My Sons” is the best example of American society of that time.  The importance of past is also described in the play. Past is also has relatedness with private and public and life of characters. “All My Sons” is a modern Shakespearean tragic drama. I would like to conclude my interpretation by some lines from the play,

“You want to live? You better figure out your life.”

"Far From the Madding Crowd" - A novel by Thomas Hardy

Far From the madding Crowd

By Thomas Hardy

               Thomas Hardy is a very famous novelist and his all novels have variety of characters. He has that skill to present lot of characters in a single novel with different personalities. He was from rural background in Dorset. His first novel was “Desperate Remedies” but his first success was “Far from the Madding Crowd”

              In most of his novels Hardy has used his imaginative world, which he has given a name “Wessex”. Hardy has created a map of that world and located his characters in that world.

Far From the madding Crowd 

                    

            This novel has five main characters and all are connected with each other in different way. The hero of the novel is Gabriel Oak and the heroine is Bathsheba Everdene and the story revolves these characters lives.

            

           It is a love story with many love triangles in there. First there is a love story of Oak who meets Bathsheba and falls in love with her beauty but after having a little conversation he came to know that she has only one fault and that is her ‘vanity’. Oak is a very successful farmer and everybody in town calls him ‘farmer Oak’. One day Oak was feeling ill and Bathsheba has saved his life and after that Oak has went to Bathsheba’s aunt with a marriage proposal but her aunt refused him and then Bathsheba also told him that she does not love Oak so she can’t marry him and she wants a man with good status and pamper her, but Oak would not be able to do that ever.

                   

             Bathsheba was a very ambitious lady she has left the town to manage the farm which she got in inheritance, and that night Oak has experienced a tragic incident, ha has lost his all the sheep and became a poor man. Bathsheba was full of vanity, and to satisfy her vanity she has also cheated Boldwood just for fun but Boldwood was really in love with her. There were many men who wanted Bathsheba but Bathsheba fallen in love with Troy who was already committed with Fanny.

               

         Bathsheba secretly gets married with Troy, and after marriage she come to know that Troy was in love with Fanny and Bathsheba was nothing for him. After few days fanny found dead with her child andtro accepted his love for her and left the town. Troy was missing for several months and then declared dead too. Now boldwood was ready to marry with Bathsheba and almost forced her in party and gave her an engagement ring at that time Troy has came and Boldwood shot him, Troy was dead and Boldwood sentenced to be dead. Oak and Bathsheba got married.

                

         In this novel Hardy has presented that how human emotions have became the thing of playing, as Bathsheba’s aunt has played with Oak’s emotions towards Bathsheba, Bathsheba has played with Boldwood’s emotions and Troy has played with Fanny and Bathsheba’s love. All are playing with each other which brings tragedy in the novel. It is all about love and romance but nobody loves each

               

           The novel clearly shows the nature of different human, oak is a man with golden heart and always supports Bathsheba inn hher every problems. Boldwood is a man with Passion, for him there is a line in the novel.

“If an emotion possessed him, It ruled him completely”

                     

           His passion towards Bathsheba made her frightened. Another side there is Troy who is a kind of a flirty guy, he is engaged with Fanny and wanted to marry her but because of Fanny’s misunderstanding, he left her and with his flattery nature he has convinced Bathsheba to marry her. After marriage he has shown his real personality to Bathsheba. At the end it is happy ending only for Oak while Bathsheba has suffered a lot in her life because of her pride and vanity and both the character Troy and Boldwood have lost their lives. The title of the novel suggests the construction of plot, at the end both the main characters went far away from their confusing life.