Digre 1 Peder Digre Mona Modianao The Gift & Sacrifice 18 July 2011 The Role of Aesthetics in Gift

and Sacrifice: A Reading of The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde is well known for his ironic plays that satirize Victorian society and seemingly pointless vanities and traditions while at the same time praising the aesthetic value of one thing above all others. Perhaps that great theme of irony the simultaneous satire and praise of a lifestyle is the very foundation of the aesthetic movement of which Oscar Wilde took part. In The Nightingale and the Rose, an interesting dualism occurs when the role of aestheticism is brought into analysing gift and sacrifice, both relying heavily on notion of expression, not the importance of beauty and appearance. In The Nightingale and the Rose, aestheticism imbues an ultimate theme of misrecognition by dissociating the values of objects as interpreted through aesthetic or expressive value. If the story of The Nightingale and the Rose is unfamiliar, a short synopsis follows as such: a student is told by a young woman that she will dance with him at the princes ball if he brings a red rose to her, but there is no red rose in his garden and he weeps in the garden. Overhearing his tale, the nightingale proclaims that he is indeed the representation of true love and that she will get a red rose for him. She finds a red rose bush, but the rose bush is unable to produce roses due to the harsh winter. He will, however, be able to produce a rose if the nightingale gives him blood from her own heart and sings to him

Digre 2 through the night. With the nightingales plan unbeknownst to the student, he continues weeping and looks upon the nightingale envious of her selfishness and only carrying about her music, not willing to sacrifice herself for anyone. The student returns indoors and falls asleep while the nightingale sings to the rosebush throughout the night while pushing a thorn from the bush into her heart, bleeding upon the bush. In the morning, the most beautiful red rose ever seen is present, but the nightingale lies dead on the ground. The student picks the rose and takes it to the ball, but to his dismay, the young woman says that the red rose does not match her dress and the jewels given to her by another are much more impressive. The young man renounces love and returns to his world of philosophy. Arguably, the most important aspect of an object in aestheticism is its appearance. Through the examination of an object in this manner, we can determine its value in the aesthetic realm. If we take the red rose and evaluate it in this manner through Wildes language, we can ascertain its value.
My roses are redas red as the feet of the dove, and redder than the great fans of coral that wave in the ocean-cavern. [] And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart.

Wilde paints the picture of the most spectacular red rose ever seen. The detail in describing exactly how red the rose is means that the colour is of great significance and that it is more beautiful than all other roses. If Ralph Waldo Emerson is recalled, he says that, Flowers and fruits are always fit presents because a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. Certainly a rose

Digre 3 of this calibre and quality should convey equal messages, but it does not. Why could that be? If we continue to evaluate Emersons idea, we see that he also believes that, the only true gift is a portion of thyself. This seems to present a break between the aesthetic value of the flower and the self-expression it is meant to convey. He, in fact, provides no explanation as to how this can be reconciled. In this story, we can see that the statement the only true gift is a portion of thyself cannot be reconciled with flowers and fruits are always fit presents. The red rose was not a portion of the student; it was a portion of the nightingale. How red the rose is does not matter if the gift is not a portion of thyself. It was not a gift from the student to the young woman, but from the nightingale to the student. This was not realized by the student as he explicitly said, "[The Nightingale] has form 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." Therefore, when the student received the gift, but did not recognize its gift properties, the gift lost its value in accordance with the theories of Lewis Hyde. Furthermore, the student discounts the expressed value when he himself only sees the aesthetic value. 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 He fully demystifies any hidden meaning in the gift by bringing it into the scientific realm when he mentions its long Latin name. It is no surprise that the gift is not appreciated by the young woman when she

Digre 4 expressly says, I am afraid it will not go with my dress. She does not realize the gift value because the student did not recognize the gift value. It has been established that the red rose was actually a gift from the nightingale to the student, but why would the nightingale sacrifice herself to give a red rose knowing that it will only be passed on to another? The nightingale believes the student to be an example of true love and feels that love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?" It seems that the nightingale is the only being that seems to appreciate the expressed value the piece of thyself present in the gift. Indeed, the nightingale does not even get to appreciate the aesthetic value as she dies before the sun rises and reveals the product of her labor. The nightingale believed that love could be equated with an object and this is why she sacrificed herself. However, he value of the gift was not in the aesthetic value, but in the value of the nightingales labor. An interesting dilemma is brought into the situation when we examine what occurs after the young woman receives the red rose that can be further understood using Marxs theories on gift and commodity exchange. "Besides, the Chamberlain's nephew has sent me some real jewels, and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers." As previously mentioned, the young woman does not appreciate the expressed value of the flower, only the aesthetic, and when the aesthetic value does not fulfill her purposes, she discounts the gift. Furthermore, the young woman is actually more concerned with the monetary cost of the gift she received as evidenced by her mention of the cost of the jewels she has received from another suitor and it seems that the aesthetic value of the object is of little importance. It seems as if, to the young woman, the use value of

Digre 5 the rose is actually the aesthetic value and that the exchange value of the rose is of no comparison to the exchange value of the jewels. Surely, the gift exchange from the student to the young woman was made into a commodity exchange when the young woman recognized the use and exchange values of the rose. So far, there has been no mention of misrecognition in this story, so how can aesthetics introduce misrecognition? Misrecognition has been present at every stage of the story every transaction that has taken place. A sort of misrecognition was present when the nightingale willingly sacrificed herself for the sake of true love and so that the student would recognize the value of the gift and pass the value of the gift (through its aesthetic value) onto his beloved. This most certainly was not realized, as he did not even recognize that rose was a gift. There was a disconnect between what was expected and what occurred. Continuing with the theme of misrecognition, misrecognition is certainly present when the young woman actually requested the rose. This means she did not view it as a gift from the beginning (the very act of a request disqualifies it as a gift) and it was actually a commodity exchange. This is not how the student interpreted her request; he saw the request as a test of his love for her and this was the false assumption that was passed onto the nightingale. The whole exchange between the three parties inherently contains misrecognition. It seems that the only character that recognized the very nature of the red rose, all of its meanings, and the general aura of misrecognition surrounding it was the small green lizard climbing up the tree by the nightingale. After the lizard asks, Why is [the student] weeping? the nightingale responds with, he is weeping for a red rose. For a red rose? How very ridiculous! Although Wilde does not expressly say it, he is perhaps interjecting one of his thoughts on the

Digre 6 triviality of society and its custom of giving flowers. By separating and trivializing aestheticism, he empowers aestheticism by recognizing it as a selfsufficient construct even if aesthetics cannot actually fully portray the feelings expressed. One thing that I cannot rectify lies with the reasons for which the nightingale sacrificed herself. I have established that she did it because she saw the student to be a representation of true love. However, she says, 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 marketplace. It may not be purchased of the merchants, nor can it be weighed out in the balance for gold." The nightingales unwillingness to equate love with objects is what is curious. If she does not believe that the value of love can be translated into an object, why does she sacrifice herself? This, I cannot understand and will in most likelihood spend many years in thought about.