One of the central themes in Tom Jones deals with the conflict between parental authority and individual choice in matters of love and marriage. As a related topic, I'm looking to explore the ways in which Fielding portrays the relationship and dialectic between love and free will. I intend to show that when ideas of love are conveyed or emotionally expressed by certain characters in the novel toward others, they are accompanied by, and frequently interconnected with, the question of autonomy and self-determination. Furthermore, Fielding's treatment of the ideas of love and personal freedom, through the behavior and language of the characters in the novel, underpins another of the central themes: that marital felicity is as dependent on mutual affection and harmony as it is on familial and monetary considerations. There is also a suggestion in the novel that "true love" is somewhat disconnected from free will. I'll show how I'm trying to work out this idea in one of the paragraphs from my paper below.
Throughout the novel there are instances in which Sophia is treated as a sounding board for expressions and ideas of love. She is the perpetually the object of romantic, sexual, and/or paternal love. I intend to support the above thesis partly by exploring these instances. For example, the narrator of Tom Jones, with characteristic magisterial authority, states that Squire Western loves his daughter. However, a good portion of the story primarily involves him in a quest to exert his unmitigated power over her. By examining this situation one may see how parental love is conditional on, or at least intertwined with, the submission of Sophia to the will of her father. It may be even be inferred that love as such is a bane to pers...
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...erms a "Jewel" and a "Reward"(510). Lady Bellaston adds that Sophia is "a most delicious Girl"(515). Such language certainly conveys the sinister quality of their designs, and yet it also reflects the real way in which both view love. To them it is primarily the desire for the acquisition of a thing, and the whole episode illustrates the demeaning and perverse nature of such a point of view. In this sense, the act of rape is represented as an unmistakable gesture of contempt toward one's individual dignity and volition. Throughout the narrative Sophia refuses the idea of marrying against her fathers will, yet she also reserves the freedom to reject any proposal she finds undesirable, or odious. The plot between Lady Bellaston and Lord Fellamar is a direct threat to this freedom, as they seek to usurp Sophia's prerogative to govern a fundamental aspect of her own life.
When Chaucer’s knight stands judgment for the rape of an innocent girl, it is the queen’s authority that decides his fate: “And yaf him to the queene, al at hir wille, / To chese wheither she wolde him save or spille” (903-904). Using her power to humiliate the knight even further, she metes out the most ironic of punishments: “I graunte thee lif if thou canst tellen me / What thing is it that wommen most desiren” (910-911). With the queen’s decree, a great importance is placed upon the understanding of a woman’s needs—for this knowledge is the only hope in saving a man’s
In the end, readers are unsure whether to laugh or cry at the union of Carol and Howard, two people most undoubtedly not in love. Detailed character developments of the confused young adults combined with the brisk, businesslike tone used to describe this disastrous marriage effectively highlight the gap between marrying for love and marrying for ?reason.? As a piece written in the 1950s, when women still belonged to their husbands? households and marriages remained arranged for class and money?s sake, Gallant?s short story excerpt successfully utilizes fictional characters to point out a bigger picture: no human being ought to repress his or her own desires for love in exchange for just an adequate home and a tolerable spouse. May everyone find their own wild passions instead of merely settling for the security and banality of that ?Other Paris.?
A common practice when faced with a difficult choice, self-examination, is the centerpiece of two popular poems: Gregory Corso’s Marriage and T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Both poems are dramatic monologues in which the speakers address the similar situations that they find themselves in. While the speaker of Eliot’s poem has a nervous and bashful approach in his attempts at romance, the hesitant postmodern speaker in Corso’s poem makes use of sarcasm to attack the institution of marriage. When these two monologues given by similar personas are analyzed together the result is a dialogue which discusses two distinguishing views on the ideas of romance and love.
In the first part of the play Egeus has asked the Duke of Athens, Theseus, to rule in favor of his parental rights to have his daughter Hermia marry the suitor he has chosen, Demetrius, or for her to be punished. Lysander, who is desperately in love with Hermia, pleads with Egeus and Theseus for the maiden’s hand, but Theseus’, who obviously believes that women do not have a choice in the matter of their own marriage, sides with Egeus, and tells Hermia she must either consent to marrying Demetrius, be killed, or enter a nunnery. In order to escape from the tragic dilemma facing Hermia, Lysander devises a plan for him and his love to meet the next evening and run-off to Lysander’s aunt’s home and be wed, and Hermia agrees to the plan. It is at this point in the story that the plot becomes intriguing, as the reader becomes somewhat emotionally “attached’’ to the young lovers and sympathetic of their plight. However, when the couple enters the forest, en route to Lysander’s aunt’s, it is other mischievous characters that take the story into a whole new realm of humorous entertainment...
Shakespeare’s “Richard III” portrays a ‘serious’ yet passionate declaration of love to Anne greatly contrasting with the more solemn and composed confession given by Mr Collins in Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. Where Richard III seems to be unable to hold back his feelings Mr Collins appears to quite calmly lay out his reasoning for his proposed match to Elizabeth Bennet. Thus both extracts could be said to be giving us very different depictions of the idea of a ‘declaration of love’.
Throughout the majority of “Othello”, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “The Great Gatsby”, Shakespeare, Lawrence and Fitzgerald seem to have this common focus on the changes in society in terms of relationships. It appears that each text has a major event in which the dynamics of the relationships change due to some aspect in society in which they are set. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” is pervaded by the idea that relationships between classes are highly influenced negatively by society. Connie is having this very sexual and passionate relationship with her gamekeeper Oliver Mellors, who is of a lower status to her. To many reader’s surprise, Mellors is a man who, as one critic quotes, “remains impervious to the pettiness and conventional society” suggesting this to be a reason for Connie and Mellors relationship to be so strong compared to that of, for instance, Othello and Desdemona and Daisy, Tom and Gatsby’s relationships.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the reader is treated to an enthralling story of a woman’s lifelong quest for happiness and love. Although this novel may be analyzed according to several critical lenses, I believe the perspectives afforded by French feminists Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray have been most useful in informing my interpretation of Hurston’s book. In “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Cixous discusses a phenomenon she calls antilove that I have found helpful in defining the social hierarchy of women and relationships between them in the novel. In addition, Cixous addresses the idea of woman as caregiver, which can be illustrated through the character of Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand, Luce Irigaray discusses the different modes of sexual desire of men and women in her essay, “The Sex Which is Not One.” Many examples supporting and refuting her claims can be found in the novel. According to Cixous, the most heinous crime committed by men against women is the promotion of antilove. “Insidiously, violently, they have led [women] to hate women, to be their own enemies, to mobilize their immense strength against themselves, to be the executants of their virile needs” (1455). Their Eyes Were Watching God offers many examples of women in vicious contention with one another, usually involving or benefiting a man. Janie is confronted by the malice of her female neighbors in the very first chapter of the novel, as she arrives back in Eatonville after her adventure with Tea Cake. “The women took the faded shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away for remembrance. It was a weapon against her strength and if i...
In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet’s journey to love and marriage is the focal point of the narrative. But, the lesser known source of richness in Austen’s writing comes from her complex themes the well-developed minor characters. A closer examination of Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s dear friend in Pride and Prejudice, shows that while she did not take up a large amount of space in the narrative, her impact was great. Charlotte’s unfortunate circumstances in the marriage market make her a foil to Elizabeth, who has the power of choice and refusal when it comes to deciding who will be her husband. By focusing on Charlotte’s age and lack of beauty, Austen emphasizes how ridiculous and cruel marriage can be in this time.
With the use of character development, Douglass retains an important component in his argument by illustrating the alteration of Sophia Auld whose “kindest heart turned…into that of a demon”(39). He states that a human being having control of another has a soul-killing effect on his moral righteousness and results in the loss of innocence. At first Douglass writes, “The meanest slave was put fully at ease in her presence, and none left without feeling better for not having seen her. Her face was made of heavenly smiles, and her voice of tranquil music”(39). Douglass’s initial description fixes his argument that the slaveholder is not necessarily evil. His choice of words reveals his complete astonishment of her gentleness that he had never experienced before. However, Douglass’s tone appears to be disturbed of her behavior for she is “unlike any oth...
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.
In The Lais of Marie de France, the theme of love is conceivably of the utmost importance. Particularly in the story of Guigemar, the love between a knight and a queen brings them seemingly true happiness. The lovers commit to each other an endless devotion and timeless affection. They are tested by distance and are in turn utterly depressed set apart from their better halves. Prior to their coupling the knight established a belief to never have interest in romantic love while the queen was set in a marriage that left her trapped and unhappy. Guigemar is cursed to have a wound only cured by a woman’s love; he is then sent by an apparent fate to the queen of a city across the shores. The attraction between them sparks quickly and is purely based on desire, but desire within romantic love is the selfishness of it. True love rests on a foundation that is above mere desire for another person. In truth, the selfishness of desire is the
Throughout his life... was a man self-haunted, unable to escape from his own drama, unable to find any window that would not give him back the image of himself. Even the mistress of his most passionate love-verses, who must (one supposes) have been a real person, remains for him a mere abstraction of sex: a thing given. He does not see her --does not apparently want to see her; for it is not of her that he writes, but of his relation to her; not of love, but of himself loving.
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
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is written in an entertaining and adventurous spirit, but serves a higher purpose by illustrating the century’s view of courtly love. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other pieces of literature written in the same century prevail to commemorate the coupling of breathtaking princesses with lionhearted knights after going through unimaginable adventures, but only a slight few examine the viability of such courtly love and the related dilemmas that always succeed. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that women desire most their husband’s love, Overall, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that the meaning of true love does not stay consistent, whether between singular or separate communities and remains timeless as the depictions of love from this 14th century tale still hold true today.
The path to marriage initiates in the very first paragraph of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This courtship novel begins with the premise that “a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife” (pg. 5) Throughout the competition for the single men, characters are naturally divided by the norms of their social standing. However, the use of social conventions and civility further divides them. The characters in need of the most moral reform remain unchanged, leaving a path for the reformers to travel to each other’s company. Austen uses the stagnant characters and their flaws as a line that needs to cross in order to achieve a dynamic marriage of mutual respect.