An Analysis of the Story The Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen Essay

The Nightingale by Hans Christian AndersenThe Nightingale is a story about an emperor who hears of a nightingale bird in his empire that he has never seen or heard and everyone is talking about how beautiful this bird is. He is intrigued to find this bird and so he sends his chamberlain out to search the corridors and find the famous nightingale. The chamberlain approached the kitchen maid who has heard of the nightingale before. She leads him into the forest to find the bird and request that it sing for the emperor. Once the emperor hears the nightingale, he orders a cage and keeps him in his empire but the bird is unhappy to be stuck inside so waits for the perfect moment to escape the empire leaving the mechanical bird in the cage. The emperor is angry that the bird escaped and banished the bird from his empire. The emperor falls ill enough to soon die, and has death sitting on his chest. The nightingale flies back to the empire and sings for the emperor who soon finds himself healed and healthy. The emperor and the nightingale set a plan for the bird to remain free to come and go as it pleases and sing whenever it wants to or not. The nightingale promises to sing about good and bad, sad and happy, all of which is hidden from the emperor as long as he promises not to tell people a little bird tells him everything. And they lived happily ever after.Although this story does not start off with once upon a time, or anything similar like a typical folktale does, the author alternatively creates a distant setting that happened long ago and makes it known that its an old story. As folktales are known to be old stories that are told from teller to teller, this story reminded me of such. Like a folktale, the story has a beginning, middle, and...

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