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Shakespeares theme of love
Shakespeare's theme of love
Shakespeares theme of love
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“Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short; Youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame.” - William Shakespeare (The Passionate Pilgrim, Poem XII, lines 5 to 8).
Youth, William Shakespeare describes, is strong and impetuous. Vivid and passionate, young love embodies the golden years of youth and is captured in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, as well as in the short story The Lady, or the Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton and in the novel Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult. Young love is bright and fervent but foolish and impulsive, and, in each of these three texts, leads to disaster.
Romeo and Juliet is a classic tragedy of forbidden love between the quixotic dreamer Romeo and the beautiful
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When her lover is put on trial to choose between the two doors, one holding a lady and one holding a tiger, the princess is the one who tells him which door to choose, leaving him at the mercy of her decision. The author writes, “She had lost him, but who should have him?” (Stockton, 3). The princess chooses whether he lives and marries another woman or dies by a hungry tiger. Either way, the princess will be the loser because her previously surreptitious affair with the youth ends no matter what, and she has conflicting thoughts about which door to tell her lover to pick. The author writes, “Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity?” (Stockton, 3). The princess, being a jealous princess, would likely decide to have for her lover to open the door containing the hungry tiger. Then, he would die right away and wait for her in the afterlife. The princess would probably rather have her lover die than marry another woman, because she would be unable to bear her lover marrying and loving a different woman. However, no matter which option the princess chooses, she will reap the consequences of her foolish decision to secretly love the youth. This young love is fated to end in …show more content…
Young Catherine Marsh, emotional and lacking sagacity, proclaims that she loves Jack, who is twice her age. Her fictional evidence is used to incriminate him and destroy his innocence before court and everyone in his life, and her youthful passion and foolishness in what she thought was love ruined Jack’s life irrevocably. The author writes, “He was no longer seeing a pretty young girl but a poisonous snake that might strike when he least expected” (Picoult, 108). This is the beginning of the end for Jack, the catalyst for his downfall. Catherine’s love is young and foolish, and while she doesn’t mean to cause Jack to lose his job, reputation, and friends, she does. The author writes, “Raw love...could blindside you. It could make you forget what you did not know to focus exclusively on those few pieces you could commit to heart” (Picoult, 93). Catherine acts impulsively on her love for Jack without thinking about the possibility that Jack could be hurt by her actions and only focuses on the ephemeral happiness she feels with Jack. In the end, her young love causes Jack to be imprisoned, and her fantasy crashes
(2). Furthermore, this promotes the importance of class and destiny. The quote itself reveals the pressure put on the king to end the lover's relationship. This corresponds with the archetype by inferring that love has no future if the lovers are doomed in the public and parental eye. This damnation often leaves a limitation of choices for the characters, leading to the princess's final choice of sacrifice.
Which came out of the opened door: the lady, or the tiger? (As long as you provide details from the text to support your answer, there is no "right" or "wrong"
It is no longer an innocent love, but a consuming need to be together, regardless of the social implications. Their early friendship, before the messiness of romantic love enters the equation, seems to be Montaigne 's exemplary "…perfect friendship…[which] is indivisible: each one gives himself so wholly to his friend that he has nothing left to distribute" (67). However, in their treatment of one another, it remains throughout the novel that the relationship dynamics are unequal. Catherine is very wishy-washy and selfish in her feelings and attitude toward Heathcliff, and the hot and cold leaves him confused, frustrated, and unwilling to move on. The inequity that reigns over their relationship can be viewed as a relationship of utility, which as Aristotle says, "those who love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for themselves…thus, these friendships are only incidental…Such friendships, then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the other ceases to love him” (129). The “perfect relationship” that Brontë seems to be after is nothing more than a façade. She borrows concepts and themes from both Aristotle and Montaigne but fails to implement
While Catherine’s love grows for her hero, Henry Tilney, John also develops affection for Catherine. During this struggle for Catherine’s love, John begins to mature into the ‘classic villain.’ For example, during a normal evening at the ball, Catherine had promises to dance with Henry Tilney. However, Thorpe approaches Catherine and declares, “What is the meaning of this? - I thought you and I were to dance together” (Austen 46). Catherine is flustered since this declaration is false. After a barrage of half-truths, John once again talks about his beloved horses and his knowledge of them. Suddenly without any type of closure, he is wisped away by the “resistless pressure of a long string of passing ladies” (Austen 47). In this section of the novel, John Thorpe quickly becomes dislikeable and Jan...
We know from the very opening scene of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet's love will end in
Even though these two stories are very different from each other, they also use the same theme of intimacy; though, in different senses. Carter’s version of “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Tiger’s Bride”, seems to be written in response to Madame de Beaumont’s version. Carter shown
In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the views of love held by the character Romeo contrast sharply with the views of Mercutio. Romeo's character seems to suffer from a type of manic depression. He is in love with his sadness, quickly enraptured and easily crushed again on a passionate roller coaster of emotion. Mercutio, by contrast is much more practical and level headed. His perceptions are clear and quick, characterized by precise thought and careful evaluation. Romeo, true to his character begins his appearance in the play by wallowing in his depression over Rosaline who does not return his love:
In Perrault’s “The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods”, love is a general theme. With a prince finding his princess, the two of them are bound to the lies that come with the choice of their young love. However, this love grows a prince into a king and a princess into a queen. Love sometimes also involves parental involvement. Love is so big sometimes that is seconds as blinders. Being a different type of mother, the former queen has always been seen as a normal person. But, she loses sight of the love she has for her son until a tragic and horrific scene reminds her of what love really is. Through Perrault’s idealistic view, he reminds his audience that love conquers all things.
As each day goes by their relationship grows to abuse. Her power over him and his willingness to give her all, is what brought the relationship to an unhealthy way of living. However, he admired her, she was beautiful and such a charm. Catherine loved Edgar but without passion. She cared but just in another way, because Edgar was the right social class for
Catherine is free-spirited, wild, impetuous, and arrogant as a child, she grows up getting everything she wants as Nelly describes in chapter 5, ‘A wild, wicked slip she was’. She is given to fits of temper, and she is torn between her wild passion for Heathcliff and her social ambition. She brings misery to both of the men who love her, ultimately; Catherine’s selfishness ends up hurting everyone she loves, including herself.
The King’s daughter falls in love with a young man who is not up to the standards of the King, when the princesses and her young lovers secret is found out by the King he punishes the young lover to the fate of the two doors. The princess work tirelessly to figure out what each door holds, to warn her lover. When she finds that the lady who would be behind the door was a young maiden whom she had a deep hatred for, she found herself struggling with what fate she would give her lover, give him up and see him live with a women she hated or see
“Could this be the one true love I was searching for?” The prince whispered quietly to himself. He couldn’t stop staring at her dancing around in the tall grass. He leaned closer to get a better look but he ended up falling forward with a loud thud making the woman jump. She looked around to see where the sudden noise had come from. When her eyes met the prince’s they just stared in awe at each other.
In this story there are only two main characters, Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley. Frederick Henry acts as both the narrator and central character in the novel. The reader is not told so much about Catherine, only what is understood from Frederick’s point of view. Catherine acts as a static character in the novel. She has already known love and lost it so she understands that she cannot build her whole life around Frederick.
Some of Gargano's other premises were not as insightful for me. For example, I had trouble with what Gargano called Catherine's "transcendentalizing imagination" that causes her to create "beautiful figments" of Townsend that possess her and become the "paramount value of her life, and other attachments, no matter how strong, must somehow accommodate themselves to it." (132). This contention tends to belittle Catherine's intelligence as well as her grasp of reality.
Catherine’s revenge does not make things better for her. Her revenge on Heathcliff by blaming him for her upcoming death does not meliorate her mind. Just before she dies, she ascribes Heathcliff for her “murder.” “You have killed me, and thriven on it, I think” (Bronte 158). Catherine resembles what Oliver Goldsmith said, “When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy?