Love In John Boyle O Reilly's A White Rose

How can we define the love? What does love really mean? Is the meaning of love same for everyone? Is it just physical attraction? Is it an intellectual connection? Love is one of the beautiful emotions in human life. We can define the love as a several sentences because the type of love is different. For example, we can feel the love from family, friends, and fiancé. Love is such a beautiful feeling that cannot be enough to be verbalized. Billy Joel suggests that “But I know that I can 't live without her anyway" ("She’s Got A Way” 3). John Boyle O’Reilly, on the other hand, tells us that “And the white rose is a dove “(“The White Rose” 4). Over the centuries, many poems have illustrated what is true love no matter who is the lover, where …show more content…
The first characteristic is symbolism. He uses the white and red rose as a symbol of the love. “The red rose whispers of passion”(1), “the red rose is a falcon”(3) these are the descriptions of the red rose. The red rose means very strong and powerful love and it also seems like a free spirit of the love. He also mentioned the falcon as a description of the red rose so it shows how passionate the love is. Furthermore, the red rose, powerful passionate love, can be the fire of love also can be the love wore off very easily as he falls in love quickly. On the other hand, the white rose has totally different meaning. “The white rose breathes of love”(2), “the white rose is a dove”(4) these are the descriptions of the white rose. The white rose means innocence and pureness of his love to her. Innocence love seems like the basic of the true love and he also prefers innocence love. In addition, he mentioned the dove as a symbol of the white rose. The dove is represented as a symbol of the peace, pureness, and clear mind. Due to he uses the dove as a description of the white rose; his ideal of the white love is the pure-white love. In addition, O 'Reilly indicates so clearly that his red rose is a symbol of physical desire and his white rose a symbol of spiritual attachment that when we get to the metaphor in the third line we unconsciously substitute passion for the red rose in our minds, knowing without thinking that what O 'Reilly is really likening is falcons and passion, not falcons and roses. Similarly, in the second stanza, the symbolism of the white rosebud with pink tips is specifically indicated in the last two lines, although, as a matter of fact, it would have been clear from the first