56 36
On-going action 2, 9, 10, 11, 13,
15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27,
28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 and
38
1. Field
The Oscar Wilde’s short story “The Nightingale and the Rose” is about a Nightingale who sacrificed her life to give a young student a red rose, to give to a
daughter of a professor to get a dance in a ball. The story happened in the young Student’s garden at winter.
The main fields topics are Red Rose and Nightingale, according to the title of the short story. The field Red Rose is supported with three sub-fields, they
are Young Student, A Ball Tomorrow Night and Daughter of the Professor. While, the field Nightingale is supported with seven sub-fields, they are Young Student,
True Lover, Mystery of Love, Soaring into the Air, Rose-tree, Oak-tree and Sing All Night Long. We can see this in the table, for example, the main field of texts 1,
3, 32, 33, 37 and 38 is red rose, and the sub-field is young student, then with the sub-sub-fields for texts 33, 37 and 38 are Professor’s house, Love and Read a
Great Dusty Book respectively. The story started when the young Student was weeping for a red rose to
give to a girl to get a dance in tomorrow night ball. He was heard by the Nightingale from her nest in the holm-oak tree. Touched by the young Student’s
sadness, the Nightingale sailed across the garden to look for a red rose. Then, the Nightingale went to ask for a red rose to three Rose-trees. The
first Rose-tree stood in the centre of the grass-plot couldn’t give the Nightingale a red rose, because its only had white rose, so it told the Nightingale to go to its
brother, the second Rose-tree who grew round the old sun-dial, but it only had yellow rose, so it also told the Nightingale to go to its other brother, the third Rose-
57 tree who grew beneath the young Student’s window. The Red Rose-tree also
couldn’t give the Nightingale a red rose, because the winter chilled its veins, the frost nipped its buds, and the storm broke its branches, so it did not have any red
roses. But, it told the Nightingale there is a way to get a red rose at a cost of her life, and the Nightingale agreed to do it.
At the end of the story, all night long when the moon shone, the Nightingale sang with her breast against a thorn that went deeper and deeper into
her breast, and her life-blood ebbed away from her. At dawn the red rose finished blossoming and the Nightingale lied dead in the long grass with the thorn in her
heart. Then, at noon the young Student found the red rose and gave it to the daughter of the Professor, but he was rejected. The young Student angrily threw
the rose into the street, where it fell into the gutter and a cart-wheel went over it. The young Student decided that Love is a silly thing and not as useful as logic, and
went back home to study Philosophy and Metaphysics.
2. Tenor
