“Love and hate are two sides of the same coin” (anonymous). While these emotions are thought of as positive and negative respectively, they are really just different forms of passion. Passion drives everyone to make decisions in their life, and love and hate are the most common forms of passion. Everyone experiences love and hate and is prisoner to the reactions that these elicit from them. Emotions simply happen, and while they can be hidden or covered up, they cannot be consciously changed by the victim. People cannot control the emotions they feel, but they often choose to work towards intensifying their hate or love once they know they are experiencing it. Although these emotions are encountered by everyone at one point or another, they are misunderstood by society and usually accepted as opposites. Though love and hate are often thought of as antonyms, Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his novel The Scarlet Letter, examines how they are fundamentally the same because of their intimacy and the power with which they shape people and society.
In the same way as love, hatred requires a certain intimacy between two people. A relationship cannot consist of either love or hate without there first being a close relationship between two individuals. Hawthorne explains that for these emotions to exist, “each, in its utmost development, requires a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge” (Hawthorne 246). In order for either of these emotions to be conceived within an individual, the person must first make an effort to acquire a deep understanding of the other person. It is necessary to have a familiarity with someone else’s character in order to either love or hate them, and it is impossible to become close to som...
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...both just opposing variations of passion. Like opposite sides of the same coin, love and hate have their differences, but they are fundamentally the same. The real question in every relationship is what side the coin will land on.
Works Cited
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In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes imagery to convey that Dimmesdale can represent Puritan Society rather than the round character that can be seen on the surface level. This is seen through the imagery and symbolism of hypocrisy, Dimmesdale as a Christ figure, and the scarlet letter.
The "Scarlet Letter" The Critical Temper. Ed.
When an emotion is believed to embody all that brings bliss, serenity, effervescence, and even benevolence, although one may believe its encompassing nature to allow for generalizations and existence virtually everywhere, surprisingly, directly outside the area love covers lies the very antithesis of love: hate, which in all its forms, has the potential to bring pain and destruction. Is it not for this very reason, this confusion, that suicide bombings and other acts of violence and devastation are committed in the name of love? In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, the reader experiences this tenuity that is the line separating love and hate in many different forms and on many different levelsto the extent that the line between the two begins to blur and become indistinguishable. Seen through Ruth's incestuous love, Milkman and Hagar's relationship, and Guitar's love for African-Americans, if love causes destruction, that emotion is not true love; in essence, such destructive qualities of "love" only transpire when the illusion of love is discovered and reality characterizes the emotion to be a parasite of love, such as obsession or infatuation, something that resembles love but merely inflicts pain on the lover.
A very strong feeling of dislike, intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury. Is how Websters discribes the word Hate. Thurman gives proof of that definition in this chapter about hate. He uses stories and personal examples that provide us a picture in words of what hate means and how Jesus was totally against the hatred. He writes that hatred is death to the spirit and disintegration of ethical and moral values. Above and beyond all else it must be borne in mind that hatred tends to dry up the springs of creative thought in the life of the hater, so that his resourcefulness becomes completely focused on the negative aspects of his environment. The urgent needs of the personality for creative expression
I have always been of the belief that in order to truly love, hate must exist within the core of the relationship. Nowhere in modern fiction is this dictum examined more accurately than in the novel by James Cain, Mildred Pierce. Looking at the concept in a familial context, James Cain has created two well-developed characters, Mildred Pierce and her daughter, Veda, that not only emphasizes the nature of mother-daughter relationships, but looks at how love and hate permeates the very essence of the relationship. The Irish poet Thomas Moore once described the fascination of these violently fluctuating emotions, “When I loved you, I can’t but allow/ I had many an exquisite minute/ But the scorn that I feel for you now/ Hath even more luxury in it” (Tresidder 57).
Throughout history, the powers of love and hate have constantly been engaged in a battle for superiority. Time and time again, love has proven to be stronger than hate, and has been able to overcome all of the obstacles that have stood in the way from it reaching its goal. On certain occasions, though, hate has been a viable foe and defeated love when they have clashed. In the novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens presents several different power struggles between love and hate.
Love is considered a wonderful connection between two people that brings happiness to many. Although without hate no one would realize how marvelous love truly is. Does this mean hate is more powerful than love throughout the world? Hate overpowers love because there may be so much love in this world, but with the tiniest bit of hate everything could be changed in a split second. Hate is an indestructible power that will demolish anything in its way, like it did in The Coffin Quilt, by Ann Rinaldi. Roseanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield’s love was simply not powerful enough to defeat the hate that came along with the love.
Nathaniel Hawthorne is a successful writer of many books, but through his book The Scarlet Letter he clearly portrays a disliking and disgust towards the puritans and their way of life. He shows this throughout the book by using tone, symbolism, and selection to detail.
An important element that is displayed in both love and hate is motivation. An example of this is portrayed in “A Note on My Son’s Face,” as the author states, “I wanted that face to die, to be reborn in the face of a white child” (35,36). This line displays a level of prejudice towards what is hers. Derricotte battles intense feelings of wanting a white looking child amongst a world where not being grateful for what she has is seen as hatred towards her son. She looks at the face of her black child and is filled with animosity for what he looks like and what he will become. This is where the motivational factor comes into play, and where the lines of love and hate really become blurred. Does she hate her child because of how he looks? or Does she love her child because she wants him to become better than what he is destined for? She is motivated by love to want him to become better than what she believes is possible for him, yet she displays hate in the sense that she is hurting the child for what he is, and also for what he has no control over. According to Rempel this grandmother is displaying both intense feelings of love and hate. Loving what is hers, but hating what it will become. Therefore, this poem supports the theory that love and hate are
...eril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating.
As Pearl and Hester walking in the Forest, Pearl questioning about the Black Man. She questioned why isn’t the Black Man wear the scarlet letter too if he created the scarlet letter on Hester. Pearl had spoken her thought so straightly her perspective towards the scarlet letter is not something sinful or guilty. She views the scarlet letter like a decoration on the cloth. In Romantic’s point of view what Hester did is not sinful or guilty, most importantly she follows her heart, so in the Romantic’s view the scarlet letter is not sinful. Pearl’s thought aligned with the Romantic’s thought symbolized that Pearl in the book Scarlet letter represent Romantic’s view on the Puritanism around
Duffy, Carol A. "Medusa." The Norton Anthology English Literature. 8th ed. Vol. F. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2006. 2875-876. Print.
For one Bendrix begins the book as a “Record of Hate” (1951, 1.I.1) for he “hated Henry – Hated his wife Sarah too” (1951, 1.I.1) yet he questions whether his “hatred is really as deficient as my love” (1951, 2.II.44) and later acknowledges that his “hate got mislaid” (1951, 4.I.107). For him it is merely the loss of love that creates what he perceives as hate, yet even this dissipates and is realised to merely be anger and unhappiness. For Sarah it leads her to hate herself as “a bitch and a fake” (1951, 3.II.75), who leads others to unhappiness and cannot herself face her true emotions. Love within the end of the affair seems to destroy the everyday Façade and leaves behind the worst parts of our personality’s for Bendrix it’s his jealous possessiveness for Sarah it is her lies. Yet one cannot hate without love as “hatred seems to operate the same glands as love” (1951, 1.III.19) an idea that explains Bendrix so well, as even in his hatred he is still
Chase, Richard (1996). "The Lessons of the Scarlet Letter." Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne (pp. 145-152). San Diego: Greenhaven.
Abrams, M. H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol I. 5th Ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1986.