Book Analysis: The Four Loves

Love is a universal term. We hear it around us from passersby, from our friends, from songs and movies, and sometimes, even from our own selves. It’s one thing people most often talk about – one thing most people claim to feel. It is, therefore, in my best interest that my group has chosen its faces as our thematic focus.
In 1960, C.S. Lewis published The Four Loves. In this book, Lewis classifies love into four types: storge or affection or fondness – the type that’s natural and mostly brought about by familiarity, common in families and people who have crossed paths merely by chance; philia or the friendly love; eros or the romantic love – the love in the sense of being in love; and lastly, agape, the greatest of them all; it’s unconditional, brought forth no matter the circumstances.
I have chosen three short stories; each representing a different kind of love. The first one, falling under storge, is Heaven by Mary Gaitskill. This short story appears in Bad Behavior, a collection of her stories published in 1989. In essence, it revolves around a family’s troubles, as well as desperate love lingering among its members. A short story on philia is The Devoted Friend by Oscar Wilde, published in 1888, and whose central theme is true friendship. The last one is on eros; it’s called Kapre: A Love Story, and was written by Erin Chupeco in 2011.
Of course, as a psychology major, my initial plan of action is to make a psychological criticism of the said works. Freudian reading methods may be fit in interpreting the text. A psychoanalytical analysis of particular characters in the literary works may give me a glimpse of the author’s psyche, as the text may subtly be a result of the author’s unresolved issues, such as traumas, sexual fixations and family life. For instance, why does Chupeco write about magical creatures and why is it a tragic love story? Why is Heaven by Gaitskill tragic as well, albeit in the familial aspect? What makes Oscar Wilde value friendship too much; did he himself have a devoted friend? Or was he the devoted friend? Questions like these may be addressed psychoanalytically, and I am enthused to review the text in this approach.
I’m also intending to make a moral/intellectual critical approach of the short stories. This kind of criticism interests me, and I do think it is very applicable to my group’s thematic focus, as well as the texts I’ve chosen. I’d like to dissect the texts and see if they not only tell tales about love, but also conveys a certain lesson about it.
With the above-mentioned approaches, I wish to have a strong grasp of the texts and their meanings and ultimately, relate them to each other and to my group’s thematic focus, love’s existence in different faces.