Comparing “The Nightingale and the Rose” to “The Half Brothers”

GCSE ENGLISH COURSEWORK-

The Nightingale and the Rose, by Oscar Wilde, is written as a fairy tale, not, as most fairy tales are, for children, but for adults. It is a story about romance and love. The nightingale, the main character in the story, overhears a student who is distraught because he is unable to obtain a red rose (the requirement of his love interest if she is to dance with him) and goes about trying to get one for him. It turns out that the only way she can do this is to sacrifice herself and she does. I will compare this story to the other short story by identifying the main themes and characters in the story and comparing them.

There seem to be three main themes, they are self sacrifice, love and the nature of romance. However, in my opinion there is another theme, that of art and the sacrifice of the artist. In creating the red rose, her greatest work of art, the nightingale had to sacrifice her own life. This is different to the theme of self sacrifice as the sacrifice of an artist is done in order to produce an end result, a painting or sculpture, something that is going to inspire emotions in others and ultimately gain recognition for themselves.

“If you want a red rose,” said the tree, “you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart’s blood. You must sing it to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sung to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life blood must flow into my veins, and become mine.”

Of course the overriding theme of the story is that of the nightingale’s self sacrifice. In order to create the red rose the student so desperately desired, the nightingale had to give her own life. She did this not for love of the student or anything tangible. She did it for the love of an ideal, that is, she sacrificed herself for the sheer love of love itself. This is quite unlike Gregory’s self sacrifice in “the Half Brothers” by Elizabeth Gaskell. Gregory sacrificed himself to save his half brother because he loved his half brother so much. The following quote illustrates just how much the nightingale really did love romance and love itself.

“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingale, “and life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and to watch the sun in his chariot of gold, and the moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet love is better than life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?”

The theme of love ...

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The theme of love turned out to be something of a farce when it became all too apparent that the woman of whom the student spoke so reverently had in fact set the student the task of finding a red rose merely as a way of saying no to his invitation without actually having to say no, as she believed it to be an impossible task. The Nightingale was blinded by her strong belief in love and was unable to see what the other flowers, insects and animals could see all too clearly. That is, that had the girl truly loved the student just being with him would be enough, she wouldn’t need material possessions from the student so he could see her. The Nightingale was quite naïve in this respect and had she been able to see what happened to the red rose and how far away from true love the student’s involvement with the girl was, she would have been horrified.

“What a silly thing love is,” said the student as he walked away. “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 day and age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to Philosophy and study Metaphysics.”

The tragic end of the nightingale and the subsequent complete lack of emotion on anyone’s part are completely different from the ending of the Half Brothers. When Gregory died it made people realise just how much more worth he had than they had previously thought. People at least honoured his memory for the great, selfless and brave deed that he had done. The Nightingale was not afforded that luxury. This is a huge contrast between the two stories. In Gaskell’s story love is the supreme factor, quite unlike in Wilde’s where the nightingale’s gesture is wasted and in the end unsuccessful.

The Half Brothers by Elizabeth Gaskell is, by contrast to Wilde’s fairy tale, a story filled with an abundance of human tragedy, the only relief from which is the joy of a mother’s love for her child. Helen, the mother of Gregory and his stepbrother, is married young. However her husband and first child die and she has to look after the newly born Gregory with just the help of her sister, Fanny. Helen remarries, not for love but for practicality. The man she is married to is called William Preston. He is jealous of Helen’s love for Gregory. Helen dies in shortly after giving birth to her and William Preston’s son. After Helen dies William Preston treats Gregory badly, blaming everything on him. One night Gregory’s half brother does not return from an errand of his father’s and Gregory goes out onto the moors to find him. He does so and gives up his own life in order to save his half brother’s.

One of the main themes seems to be that of loss. The mother lost her first husband, her first child and her own life. Nothing could alleviate the mother’s pain at having lost her first husband and child besides Gregory. He was the last thing she had left from her first marriage and she loved him more than anything else. This love, although of a different type, was as strong as the ideal type of love exemplified by the nightingale. However William Preston, Helen’s (the mother’s) second husband, certainly did not wish for a love this strong. He was incredibly jealous of his wife’s love for her son because she simply did not love him as much as she loved Gregory. After Helen’s death William, along with everyone else besides Old Adam (the shepherd), was extremely nasty to Gregory. He blamed everything on Gregory, even the death of Helen during the birth of his own son. He constantly ridiculed and belittled Gregory. Lassie, Gregory’s dog, is an important character in the story, as one would be unable to see the change in attitude of everyone after Gregory’s death if Lassie was not there symbolising Gregory.

Gregory is almost a “Jesus” figure in the story as he sacrifices himself to save another and in dieing achieves more than he ever could alive. In his death he won the respect and appreciation of his stepfather, half brother and aunt. Had he not gone out onto the moors and saved his half brother then he never would have been able to win this much respect.

“I would have given him half my land- I would have blessed him as my son, - oh God! I would have knelt at his feet, and asked him to forgive the hardness of my heart.” (William Preston on Gregory)

The two stories are similar in theme but not in the values they represent. The main theme of both is that of self sacrifice but the circumstances and reasons could not be more different. The Half Brothers is a much more sorrowful story than the Nightingale and the Rose. It is filled with real sadness from actual losses. The student in Oscar Wilde’s story is just feeling sorry for himself because he can not go to the dance with the Professor’s daughter as he can not find a red rose. It is a passing sadness, not the kind of pain that Helen felt after losing her child and husband. The Nightingale is too naïve to realise this and sacrifices her own life for nothing in the end. Although the Nightingale’s death is very sad for the readers, the characters in the story do not even know of her existence but the treatment of the rose at the end seems to symbolise how little they would have cared that the Nightingale sacrificed her life for the rose. Gregory, however, sacrificed his life for the best possible reason, to save the life of another. As I have said before, the Nightingale sacrificed herself for the love of an intangible ideal; Gregory gave up his life because of the love (to an extent- unrequited love) he had for his stepbrother. It is very unlikely that the stepbrother would have had either the sense or the heart to do the same for Gregory. Also, the Nightingale’s death went basically unnoticed, her legacy- the red rose was treated incredibly badly and strewn in the road whereas Gregory’s death was the result of probably the most important thing he did during his lifetime, and his legacy- Lassie, was treated very well. This is an important difference in these stories: it shows the change of peoples’ opinions towards Gregory and the newfound respect and love they had for him when his sacrifice became known. By contrast, the nightingale’s sacrifice was not only unnecessary, it was also completely unrecognised.