The story is mostly built up in a dialogue between the two main characters of the story, an old man and a young gentleman. The young gentleman tries to buy a love poison for his girlfriend, who he is afraid to lose. The old man, tell the young man the side effects and the magical things the love poison can do. Not caring about the bad things that can happen with him giving the love poison to his girlfriend, he takes off with the love poison hoping to make his girlfriend be with him forever. Collier underscore’s how dangerous the cynicism of an old man and the desire of a young man can lead to the need for an ideal of love that permits interchange, individuality, and understanding. This sort of love, because it excludes everything else in life, suffocates rather than pleases.…
In Macbeth, Salome, Havisham and Stealing, there are a variety of ways in which disturbed characters are presented through both language, structure and context. In this essay, I will convey the various ways in which disturbed characters are shown throughout the written pieces such as violence, death and loneliness.…
This is what leads to death being suppressed and a taboo in society; similar to what Lifton would describe as pornography of death. This is what Lifton described as repression and denial of death. Pornography of death also elicits the sense of exploitation and manipulation, which creates a pseudo-reality around the topic of death. Therefore, Man’s repression of death is what caused him to be shocked by the little girls demeanor toward…
At one stage in the novel, the main character Patrick is said to have "come across a love story. This is only a love story. He does not wish for plot and all its consequences." One senses that this is actually Ondaatje himself speaking, and that he is voicing the feelings of the reader at this particular stage. The love story intrigues and attracts the audience, who are to become as involved in these relationships as the characters themselves. The vivid representation is one of entangled passion, romantic obsession and heartache surrounding Patrick, Clara and Alice, as they become involved in the exploration of love, in its many forms. Ondaatje presents the reader with this universal theme and yet still manages to make it seem as though he is introducing us to a new world, one containing lust, sexual passion, and spiritual, friendship and parental love.…
Marie begins her collection of lais with the story of Guigemar, a noble knight who is cursed with the task of finding true love to heal a physical injury. This lay introduces two types of love: selfish and selfless. Selfish love is not courtly love. It lacks devotion and true loyalty. It lacks suffering and self-denial. Marie de France portrays this kind of love in the old husband of the woman whom Guigemar loves. The man locks his wife away in an enclosure guarded by a castrated man. By doing this, the husband shows a mean, limited devotion to his wife; perhaps even worse, he limits her ability to experience true love. This kind of love does not last; in fact, the husband is cuckolded when his wife has a year-long affair with Guigemar. He is made a fool, the dupe of love.…
So first up is “The Bouquet”; I sympathized mainly for the young girl named Sophie. Society’s faults stunted her growth as an individual, and kept her from bonding with those she desired relations. The whole culture surrounding her took away most of the attributes that make oneself human- such as love, happiness, and human connection.…
When the inherent dualistic nature of man can no longer be extinguished or suppressed, the parallels between separate identities, the id and superego, become blurred. This notion is explored in Audrey Niffeneger’s ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’, through the characters of Elspeth and Edie, as well as their perception of one another; both of which become a pastiche to Robert Louis Stevenson’s original gothic novella, ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. Although the initial outlook for the other is hatred, their inextricable connection compels for an acceptance; which is elucidated when Elspeth remarks “But I never hated Edie; that would be like hating myself”. This coincides with the gothic concept presented in Stevenson’s novella; Jekyll is…
Kate Chopins short story , “The Story of An Hour”, describes Mrs. Mallard as being ienslaved in an idealistic marriage during the nineteenth century. Mrs. Mallard, unlike the stereotypical women of the time, tastes the momentary sweetness of freedom when she hears the false news of her husband’s death.…
Throughout the reading, Clare analyzes the strict rules that our society has made for femininity and masculinity. Our culture has made these ideas where gender should look a certain way and individuals should act a certain way. For Clare, his childhood was very difficult as he didn’t fit into these rules. He had a difficult time determining whether he was masculine of feminine. He didn’t understand how society determined you were a queer if you didn’t belong to either of the two sides.…
The power of love causes individuals to react in many different ways. In the Lais of Marie de France, each story of love produces a different outcome. For a story’s relationship, whether it involves lovers, siblings, or parents and children, there is one similarity hidden beneath the facades that make up each story; love. The characters involved make drastic changes to their lives in order for their relationship to survive. Throughout many of the tales, the protagonists succumb to the pain of love and the disappointments that may come along with it. In the “Lai of Milun”, the characters suffer greatly in hopes of one day achieving a fulfilled relationship, but their perseverance is rewarded in the end. Although Milun and his mistress…
In my essay, I will explore and examine the types of love represented in pre and post 1914 love poetry. I will look at three post and three pre 1914 poems. The pre 1914 poems I will look at are First Love by John Clare, Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning and Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare. The three post 1914 poems I will look at are Harry Pushed Her by Peter Jones, Long Distance by Tony Harrison and Valentine by Carol Duffy.…
The presence of fear and anxiety throughout modern society is apparent, which is greatly verified in Look Both Ways. It is attributed that whenever an individual is touched with recent events of death or the risk of death, a certain fear is built up around it. This is demonstrated when Nick receives news that he has developed a fatal disease and he directly associates this with his father’s death which occurred fairly recently. He develops paranoia of the insecurity of the future and of being treated in the equally demeaning way to that of his own father close to his death. Meryl after returning from her father’s funeral and witnessing a horrific accident is overwhelmed with visions of death which is depicted in her cautious behaviour, wild imagination and artistic mediums. Her paintings revolve greatly around her fixation of death.…
The theme of obsession and the power it possesses is prominent in Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides. Obsession in this film relates to the infamous Lisbon sisters; portrayed with assistance from setting, symbolism, and characterization. The film is voiced over by an anonymous narrator, assumed to belong to one of the many teenage boys of which have become in enchanted by Lisbon girls. The particular group of boys that the audience are introduced to enlighten us into the lives and minds of the five Lisbon sisters, perhaps more then the girls themselves. In a scene from the film, set in the bedroom of one of the boys, we see them attempting to decode the delicate and complex puzzle of the mysterious girls. Reading through the…
Through Ovid's Metamorphosis the majority of the characters experience love in some way, shape or form. Relative to them all is the happy ending love fails to deliver. It's almost better to not be in love because nothing good comes from it. The idea of “Love” is an intense or deep feeling of affection and is usually a pleasant thing. Today's society has been conditioned to associate love with good and happiness, but the metamorphosis challenges that and shows another side of love. It explores almost all possible aspects of sexuality and incorporates love into the situation to come to a unifying result or resolution.…
The primary quality of Belinda is spiritual shallowness, an incapacity for moral awareness. Ariel acquaints us with her flirtatious character when, exhorting his fellow-spirits to remain vigilant, he says that it is not known whether the beautiful Belinda will allow her chastity to be violated, or some delicate China-jar will break; whether she will stain her honour or her new brocade; whether she will lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball. The first possibility in each of these pairs of calamities shows that Belinda is not likely to exercise sufficient caution in protecting her maidenly purity. These lines show how easily a lady like Belinda might lose her chastity in a world of philanderers and how irreparably. Besides, to Belinda a masked ball is as important as a religious prayer, and she takes her prayer with the light-heartedness with which goes to a masked ball. She has transformed all spiritual exercises and emblems into a coquette's self-display and self-adoration. All of it is done with a frivolous heedlessness. For instance, she wears a sparkling cross which is a religious symbol but which is put by her to the uses of ornamentation. For all her professed purity, Belinda is found to be secretly in love with the Baron. And herein consists what may be called her "fall". When the sylphs warn her of the approaching scissors and the danger to her hair, she seems to be indifferent to the warning. A thousand spirits of the air rush to her to guard her…