‘The Frog and the Nightingale’ is a poem associated with one of the most awful sounding creatures, i.e. a frog. As the title suggests the main characters in the poem are a cunning frog and a gullible nightingale. The poet has used these characters to aesthetically present a parody on the modern society.
He has been portrayed as arrogant, haughty, opportunist and boastful. He is used to his position of the only singer of the Bingle Bog. The entry of the melodious nightingale is an eye opener. Being practical and worldly wise he uses his position to influence her. He impresses his superiority upon her by discussing her art without any respect. He manipulates the situation to his advantage, starts making profit by charging admission fee.
His pride is evident when he doesn’t tolerate any slips on the nightingale’s part. He gradually works on the nightingale‘s weakness of being rich and famous which leads to the downfall of many. A smooth talker as he was, brushes away the blame of nightingale’s death by philosophizing it that “your song must be your own”.
She is portrayed as the innocent, naïve, gullible, polite, unsure, timid, shy and nervous type. The taste of appreciation enhances her self-esteem making her gullible. The desire to impress makes her blind to the faults of the frog. Her originality and piousness get shadowed by the greed for status and commercial success. Trapped in the cruel circle of success, she pushes herself to a point of exhaustion. She gets addicted to her status and is unable to get out of the clutches of the frog. She tries to match the misguided criticism of the frog which results in her death.
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