I read Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose on Thursday night, which was a mistake only because I then couldn’t fall asleep.
It’s on the IGCSE World Literature list for this year. Short. Pretty. The kind of story people call a fairy tale when they want you to relax. I did not relax.
A student want to dance with a girl. She say she’ll only dance with him if he bring her a red rose. His garden have none, so he lie on the grass and complain. A nightingale hear him and decide this is True Love — a lot of confidence in a boy she just meet.
The only way to get a red rose is to sing all night with her breast against a thorn, until the thorn kill her and her blood turn the flower red. She do it. She die. In the morning there is a perfect rose.
The student pick it, pleased with himself, and take it to the girl. She say no. The Chamberlain’s nephew send her jewels, and everybody know jewels cost far more than flowers. He throw the rose into the street. A cartwheel crush it. He go back to his room and open a book. The nightingale is already forgotten.
I sit there like: that’s a balance sheet.
I know that sound cold. I don’t mean the nightingale should have invoiced anyone. I mean the story is about three different prices for the same rose, and they don’t match, and that’s the whole tragedy.
To the nightingale, the rose cost a life. She pay it on purpose. She think love is worth more than living, which is either beautiful or insane, depending on the hour.
To the girl, the rose is cheaper than jewels. She say this out loud, like she’s being reasonable. In a way she is. If you only count what you can wear to a dance, jewels win. A flower wilt. A necklace don’t. I think about Mathilde in The Necklace when I read that line, which is unfair and also exactly what my brain do now.
To the student, the rose is worth one evening, until it isn’t. Then it’s worth nothing. He don’t even stay angry. He just decide love is silly and philosophy is better. He want the rose as a ticket. When the ticket didn’t work, he discard it. He never ask what it cost to make.
That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. In Business they talk about price versus value. Price is what you pay. Value is what you think you got. Wilde is doing that, except the person who pay isn’t the person who get the thing, and the person who get the thing didn’t want it.
Art do this constantly. A song that take someone three years can be skipped in twelve seconds. My favourite book cost less than lunch. I have a lunch I don’t remember and a book I do.
I used to think “value” was a money word. Now I think money is just one of the louder ways people announce what they care about. The girl announce it with jewels. The student announce it by throwing the rose away. The nightingale announce it by dying, which is a terrible pricing strategy and also the only honest one in the story.
I don’t want study finance so I can become the Chamberlain’s nephew. I want to get better at noticing when the price and the cost are not the same thing. Wilde already know. He just put a bird in it so you’d feel it first.
Also — this make me laugh, then feel bad for laughing — the student is studying, like it’s a personality. He talk about love in big words and go back to his books the second it become inconvenient. I write that down and stare at it. I go back to my books too.
Anyway. I have to read it again for class. I’ll probably find a symbol I missed. I already find a price tag I wasn’t supposed to look for.