Hans Christian Andersen’s Nightingale
The Nightingale tells the story of an emperor who discovers a nightingale bird within his empire. Everyone is talking about its beauty and how beautiful it is. He is so intrigued by the sighting, he orders his chamberlain to go searching the corridors in search for the famous nightingale. The chamberlain approached her, knowing little about the nightingale. She leads the chamberlain into the forest and asks the bird to sing for him. After hearing the nightingale, the Emperor orders a cage. The bird does not like being kept in his empire and waits for the right moment to escape. The bird fled and the emperor is furious. The emperor is soon taken ill and dies. The nightingale sings for the Emperor and flies back to his empire. Soon, he is healthy and well. The nightingale and emperor arranged for the bird’s freedom to go and sing when it chooses. As long as the nightingale doesn’t tell anyone, he will sing about everything, good and bad, happy and sad. They lived happily ever thereafter.
The author creates a distant setting and tells the story that it is an old tale, even though it does not begin with “once upon A Time” or any similar phrase like folktales. This story reminded of folktales, which are old stories passed from one teller to another. Like a folktale story, there is a beginning-middle-and-end. The story’s start focuses on creating a fantasy landscape that is magical and beautiful. It was obvious that the story created an obstacle from the very beginning. At the request the Emperor, the chamberlain sets out to find the nightingale. The chamberlain, who is searching high and low for the nightingale bird at the request of the emperor, finds it with the assistance and help of the kitchenmaid. The conflict in this story was a repetition. The chamberlain was confused by the cow’s mooing. Next, he thought the bird was the frog. Finally, he believed the bird was the real nightingale. The traditional folktale has a similarity to this story in that it includes helper characters. The Nightingale had three characters: the chamberlain that found the nightingale bird and took it to the forest for the emperor. The kitchen helper also went to the forest for the bird. And the nightingale sang for the imperior regardless of what happened. The story was a little slow and didn’t have the main conflict as the folktale. They were different. Instead, the nightingale brought joy to the Emperor and the Empire until a mechanical bird arrived one day and sang with them. This created another conflict in the story when the nightingale flew out of the window unnoticed. The emperor was furious, and so were the courtiers who blasted the nightingale for being the most inconsiderate bird. The mechanical bird was banished from the empire. People were happy with its singing and knew all the words.
The plot quickly changed and the Emperor became unwell. He felt something touch his chest and couldn’t breathe. The emperor could see death on his chest. He had his crown on top, a sword in his other hand, and a banner in his other. I also notice that the conflict came three-fold like a traditional folktale. It was the hunt for the bird, the escape of the bird, and the present day sick emperor. To drown out all the noises from those around him, the emperor demanded music. The story came to an abrupt halt after the conclusion. The nightingale, also known to be the hero of the story, came to save the Emperors and began to sing in the window. Death was overwhelmed with longing and he fell out of the window like a white mist. A folktale’s heroes are the ones who solve the problem/obstacle. The Nightingale is a story where I recognize the Nightingale bird, who saved the Emperor’s life and resolved the entire conflict in the empire. He also gave advice to the future emperor about everything that was happening and gave his all to the Emperor to keep him happy.
The Nightingale ends with The Emperor Apologizing for Driving the Bird Out of His Empire and Land. The conflict has ended as the nightingale has gone to sleep and taken Death from the emperor. The nightingale was loyal and reliable. The emperor woke up feeling refreshed and healthy. The emperor attempted to fulfill the birds wishes and offered to have the nightingale sing whenever he likes. The nightingale agrees to make a final deal with the Emperor. He will sing to him about the happy and the sad, and that he will be allowed to go and stay as long as he likes. The villain (Death), too, was defeated. The hero was also rewarded. The ending was happy. Everyone was satisfied and received what they needed. It was a traditional folktale.
The Nightingale is a folktale that shares many similarities to the original. The Nightingale has many similarities to the folktale. It had many of those characteristics found in folktales.
