A BEAUTIFUL GIRL AND HER LOVER - BILL BOWLER ADAPTATION

 Text adaptation by Bill Bowler
Illustration by Andrea Wicklund

... an evening dress for one of the young ladies at the palace. It has beautiful red flowers on it. (lady: an important woman from a good family)

... past the palace, ... sees a beautiful young lady. She is standing at an open window and a young man is standing next to her.
'What a wonderful night!' says the young man, and he looks up at the clear sky. 'And what a wonderful young woman you are!'
'Is my new evening dress ready? I must wear it soon,' says the young woman. 'I want to see the dark red flowers all over it. Why can't these dress-makers work more quickly?

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ORIGINAL BY OSCAR WILDE:

... a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen's maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball.

... the palace, ... heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. 

"How wonderful the stars are," he said to her, "and how wonderful is the power of love!"

"I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball," she answered; "I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy!"

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CONTRAST WHAT THE LOVER/YOUNG MAN SAYS IN EACH:

Original by Oscar Wilde:

'How wonderful the stars are,' he said to her, 'and how wonderful is the power of love!'

Bill Bowler's text adaptation:

'What a wonderful night!' says the young man, and he looks up at the clear sky. 'And what a wonderful young woman you are!'

(Sounds more like an idealist, "romantic and passionate" as Layla Bseiso says, in the original and like a flatterer in the kids'/students' retelling...)

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PS. ANALYSIS (on gender in this couple) 

The second couple in the tale are also heterosexual. The lovers on the balcony do not seem to be successful in their relationship and have communication problems. The man is romantic and passionate whereas the maid-of-honour is portrayed as being cold, selfish, vain, and loveless. For example, the man romances the girl saying: "How beautiful the stars are, and how wonderful is the power of love!"; however, she replies that she is worried her dress will not be ready for the State-Ball and complains that the seamstress is "so lazy". Jacobs predicts that the indifference of the maid-of-honour and her inability to understand the lives of those who work for her will break down the lovers' relationship and the girl will be to blame. The relationship between the lovers ... is similar to some measure. The female character conveys an attitude towards life and is unfocused on the fundamental needs of her relationship.
It is interesting to note that prior to the twentieth century, it was fully acceptable for men to express themselves romantically with poets such as Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth as their role models.
Hence, I (Layla Bseiso) disagree with Jacobs who writes that Wilde inverts the usual stereotypes of the "manly male" and the "romantic female" rendering the last as materialistic, callous, and aggressive. Wilde is merely presenting the Victorian society stereotypes rather than expressing a mysoginistic attitude of his own.
(Layla Bseiso, Högskolan Dalarna)

-- And the romantic couple on the palace balcony are a surprise. Readers usually expect the comment about the lovely stars and the wonderful power of love to be attached with 'she said to him' but it's 'he said to her', inverting the usual stereotypes of the manly male and the romantic female. Not only that but, in a particularly sharp and even brutal piece of manipulation by Wilde, the beautiful girl is shown to be not only unromantic, and not only materialistic and callous, but her coldly aggressive remark cruelly contradicts what we ourselves know to be the case, ... on this girl's dress. So this relationship presumably will break down and it will be the young woman's fault, because she's a - well, choose your own term of abuse.
(Richard Jacobs) --