Imagine being required to marry someone because of the family you belong to instead of being able to meet someone, fall in love, and marry them. In 2011, no one I know could imagine being told by their parents or expectations of their society who you have to marry whether you like them or not. Forester writes about love in A Room with a View. He believes love is important, even though, the book is set in an English society about 100 years ago, where love is not important, at a time when people are encouraged to strictly follow the rules and ethics of their place in society. Civilized people believe love and romance is less important than following the rules and expectations of a prim and proper existence.
Some characters such as Mr. Emerson believe that all the rules of the society are wrong and that people should freely express their love. “We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them, that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice” (27). This is an unusual opinion of Mr. Emerson to make, it is not following the customs of English society about 100 years ago. Mr. Emerson believes that love is more important than anything else.
Mr. Emerson believes people should express love and passion and that it is an important part of a relationship as we see in the next quote. “’Leave them alone,’ Mr. Emerson begged the chaplain, of whom he stood in no awe. Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there? To be driven by lovers— A king might envy us, and if we part them it’s more like sacrilege than anything I know” (61-2). Mr. Emerson passionatel...
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...’ I said: ‘Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand’” (192). Here Mr. Forester is suggesting that love is more valuable, honest, and important than in any relationship than the social classes and social expectations of the time.
In this story there is an ongoing struggle between following the rules and expectations of a strict society to marry the proper person, or get to be in a relationship that includes love and romance. In real life, people would like to choose who they are going to marry and would like to have love and romance in their marriage. It would have been really hard to live in this restrictive English society. I am glad it is 2011, and that I can date and marry anyone I want to, anyone I love. I agree with Mr Emerson that love is reality, and love can be trusted.
..., the society begins to see love as a goal. Romantic love becomes a noble trait and just quest if one wishes to embark on it.
The Canterbury Tales has many stories with multiple meaning and messages, but love is one subject that is argued throughout the book. There are two stories of the book that are discussed quite often on this subject “The Franklin’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”. “The Franklin’s Tale” argues that a marriage where everyone is considered equal is superior while the “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” supports the idea that a marriage best works with a woman being in charge. These two stories argue the two dramatically different opinions of gender relations in marriage, with their own tales as examples to support their position. Since the Wife’s tale is based off of inequality in relationships while the Franklin’s tale is centered around equal gender relations. Due to this the Franklin’s tale is of course the ideal situation.
The writers of Much Ado about Nothing, Wuthering Heights, and A Streetcar Named Desire all incorporate conflict in relationships as reoccurring theme in their texts. There are a number of different forms of relationships in the texts such as marital, romantic and family relationships and they are all presented with complexity by the authors as their opinions on the subject matter will be influenced differently due to the era they live in and their personal experiences. For example, in Much Ado about Nothing marriage is a means of creating a happy ending which is typical in Shakespearean plays but it is also a means of social advancement similarly to Wuthering Heights where couples married to either maintain or advance social class or property and not necessarily because they loved each other, Catherine openly says she wants to marry Edgar because “he will be rich”. In contrary marriage in A Streetcar Named Desire is a means of survival for Stella and Blanch having “lost Belle Reve”.
Anton Chekhov and Ernest Hemingway both convey their ideas of love in their respective stories The Lady with the Pet Dog and Hills like White Elephants in different ways. However, their ideas are quite varying, and may be interpreted differently by each individual reader. In their own, unique way, both Chekhov and Hemingway evince what is; and what is not love. Upon proper contemplation, one may observe that Hemingway, although not stating explicitly what love is; the genius found in his story is that he gives a very robust example of what may be mistaken as love, although not being true love. On the other hand, Chekhov exposes love as a frame of mind that may only be achieved upon making the acquaintance of the “right person,” and not as an ideal that one may palpate at one instance, and at the another instance one may cease to feel; upon simple and conscious command of the brain. I agree with Hemingway’s view on love because it goes straight to the point of revealing some misconceptions of love.
The concept of love has long been the preferred topic of conversation among prominent male poets. Towards the closing of the sixteenth century, however, the emerging of the female poet took place. With the introduction of Queen Elizabeth, an initial path was now cleared for future women poets to share their views on the acclaimed topic of love. Due to this clashing of ideas, the conflicting views of two exceedingly different sexes could manifest itself. Who better to discuss the topic of love then Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who expresses her ideas with intelligence comparable to the best male poets, and Emerson, world renowned for his poignant opinions? In accordance with the long history of conflict between males and females, both Emerson’s "Give All to Love" and Browning’s "Sonnet 43" convey the pleasure love brings, but while Emerson’s poem urges the retention of individualism in a relationship, Browning pleads for a complete surrender to love.
Through the use of literary devices, Pride and Prejudice reveals Jane Austen’s attitude towards the novel’s theme of true love through the actions of the suitors; the process of courtship in the 1800s articulates characterization, foreshadowing, and irony. The novel opens with the line, “it is a truth acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of wife,” (Austen 1) which foreshadows the conflict of finding a significant other . During the Victorian age, men and women courted others of the same education, wealth, and social status; it was considered uncommon for someone to marry beneath them or to marry for love. Jane Austen uses Elizabeth Bennett’s encounters with different characters of varying social statuses to criticize the traditional class system; she illustrates a revolutionary idea that marriage should be based on love. In the resolution of the plot, Austen demonstrates the perfect qualities in a marriage; she incorporates Aristotle's philosophy of friendship to prove the validity of the having an affectionate relationship.
A lot has changed in the past few decades, not to mention centuries. Perhaps you’ve heard your grandparents, or any adult in general, talking about how much the world is changing. In the past few decades, commitment has gone on a rollercoaster. At times it’s going uphill-marriage rates are up, divorce rates are down, and people are happy in their relationships. At other times, it has been quite the opposite. In A Brave New World, they show a glimpse of a possible future society; the novel serves as a warning to help the world slow down when it comes to technology and love. The expression of love has evolved throughout time due to the decrease of chivalry and the increase in divorce rates because of the change of “steps” in a relationship.
In Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s Faust (Part One) as well as in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, love plays a vital role. Love is the reason that an individual strays from the path to enlightenment and begins to act in strange, unpredictable ways. It decreases an individual’s ability to reason and takes away any incentive he might have to seek enlightenment. Since love is based on faith, it goes against the ideals of enlightenment which stress individual thinking. Love brings about a sense of fulfillment, which also works against the ideals of enlightenment which advocate a constant struggle within the individual to find truth or reach a higher plain of thought. In the Age of Enlightenment, love is a temptation man must overcome to reach enlightenment.
...nce is more important than love. This view portrayed through the figure of Lady Bracknell.. Lady Bracknell married well, and her primary goal in life was to see her daughter Gwendolen do the same. Lady Branknell states“I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable”. This shows how society has made the institution of marriage more about politics and social status and less about love. A socially respectable marriage has nothing to do with chemistry between the couple and everything to do with each individual’s heritage and wealth. Marriage is supposed to be based on love, Wilde in the play does not represent the ideologies of the time period in which it was written, it is a critique on the structure and attitudes that upheld in the society of the time.
Emerson's message is one of non-conformity and individuality. He views every man as unique within, and feels society, exterior elements and tradition are man's downfall. He urges us to be a product of ourselves, to live in the present, rather than measure our worth against man's past accomplishments or live by old ideas.
Marriage is a powerful union between two people who vow under oath to love each other for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. This sacred bond is a complicated union; one that can culminate in absolute joy or in utter disarray. One factor that can differentiate between a journey of harmony or calamity is one’s motives. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners, where Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor Mr. Darcy’s love unfolds as her prejudice and his pride abate. Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” explores class distinction, as an impecunious young woman marries a wealthy man. Both Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” utilize
It is well known that Shakespeare’s comedies contain many marriages, some arranged, some spontaneous. During Queen Elizabeth's time, it was considered foolish to marry for love. However, in Shakespeare’s plays, people often marry for love. With a closer look into two of his most famous plays As You Like It and Twelfth Night or What You Will, I found that while marriages are defined and approached differently in these two plays, Shakespeare’s attitudes toward love in both plays share similarities. The marriages in As You Like It’s conform to social expectation, while the marriages are more rebellious in Twelfth Night. Love, in both plays, was defined as
The socioeconomic condition and status of a person greatly impacts whether or not love will be reciprocated. That is evidenced by the story of “Désirée’s Baby”, by Kate Chopin and the poems “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”, by Christopher Marlowe and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”, by Sir Walter Raleigh. All these literary works relate love with socioeconomic status and how love is subordinated to society’s norms.
Love is an important part of today’s society; there is an entire genre of movies and books that revolve around the theme of falling in love and finding a soulmate. It has turned into a genre where the plot can be summarized as a boy meets a girl or vice versa and some problems arise, but in the end their love is pure and lasts. This rarely comes true in modern times. Love has turned into a fantastical and mystical dream women everywhere have; wanting to fall in love in the perfect way that Nicholas Sparks portrays it in his identical twenty or so books. Looking back in history and seeing how the way women have been portrayed, they have not changed much. In Pride and Prejudice, Twelfth Night, and I Want a Wife, the role women have in society
Victor Hugo once said, “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” Whether in Shakespeare’s tragic play about lovers doomed by fate, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s sonnet describing love, “Sonnet 116”, or O. Henry’s age old The Gift of the Magi, love motivates the characters and authors to make decisions that have a weighty impact on their lives. Throughout these works of literature, authors use love’s power to drive the plot forward to create good events within the characters’ lives. Love is a force for good because it makes people willing to forgive each other, it brings the best out of people in bad situations, and it