Synopsis: A woman married a hateful man for whom she was ill suited and found that she really loved a next-door neighbor -- an impossible love. The two talk on the balcony each night, but the trips to the window frustrate her jealous husband. She explains to him that she is drawn there each evening to listen to the beautiful song of the nightingale. He reacts by capturing and breaking the neck of the bird and hatefully throws it at her. Heartbroken the woman wraps the dead bird in fabric upon which she has embroidered the story and gives this to her lover. He in turn has a small box/coffin made out of fine stones in which he places the bird wrapped in their unfulfilled romance.
Quote: "[I]l jette sur la dame, si bien qu'elle a du sang sur sa robe un peu au-dessus de la poitrine. Sur quoi, il sort de la chambre. La dame prend le corps, le peit corps. Elle pleure a se faire mal, elle maudit les faiseurs d'engins et de lacs, les traitres qui prirent le rossignol ; car ils l'ont privee d'une grande joie."
Reader's response: The precious nightingale was so much more than a bird for the woman. It was a representation of her lover and this affair. There is a superposition of the nightingale and the lover -- the song of the bird and the croons of a lover. All that the jealous husband does to the bird is in essence done to this affair and thus forever it will be doomed to be unrequited love. I think it is so interesting that the story enshrouds the bird and becomes a memorial for what could have been. Setting aside the moral judgments one could impose, the story is quite poignant in its simplicity and passion.
Friday, August 28, 2009
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6 comments:
I find it interesting how quickly and effectively this short story villainizes the husband, who has done nothing wrong but react to an incomprehensible (to him) change in his wife's behavior. I don't mean to take his side, I really do love the purity and the beauty of the unfulfilled affection between the two neighbors. But if the story had been told differently, changing some of the language used or the details supplied to us, it might have been more difficult for the reader to identify the protagonist and the antagonist.
Great observation! I picked up on that too. From the start there is this manipulation of the reader's sympathies. The husband is portrayed as bad while the wife "appears" innocent. Thus, this affair is colored with some elements of the code of "l'amour courtois" -- a married woman can innocently flirt with an extramarital relationship (as long as it is unfulfilled).
The most interesting part of this story to me was the fact that their love was so pure. I felt like it was made a point that the readers knew that the love between the wife and the other guy was unfulfilled. It was almost like the husband acted too prematurely. Other then nighttime chats he really didn't have a reason to be that jealous and crazy so fast.
That's true. The way that it's written it makes you feel that they deserve to be with each other, but because of their circumstance, they are forced to be apart. I liked how the author used the Nightingale to symbolize their love. Even after the husband killed the nightingale, it stayed a symbol of their love.
At the end of the story I was asking myself, "why did she marry this guy in the first place if he was so rotten?" It seems like the author made the single man seem like the woman's true "knight-in-shinning armor" Anyway, it was an interesting way to depict love.
This story seems so real. This happens all the time in real life. I thought the husband acted so quickly as well, but I could understand why. In my opinion, though the love between the wife and the neighbour is not fulfilled, doesn't make it right.
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