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Love in literature essay
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Love in literature essay
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Carson McCullers is regarded as one of the most noteworthy American writers of the twentieth century. She had a challenging life; she was constantly battling illness, a turbulent marriage and alcoholism. The way she lived and felt is reflected in some of her novellas and short stories. In Ballad of a Sad Cafe there is a blend of isolation and the absence of love that consumes three characters: Amelia, Marvin, and Lymon. The novella The Members of the Wedding delves into the life of Frankie Adams an immature 12 year old who battles the trials and tribulations of her upcoming teenage years. McCullers peculiar characters writhe from loneliness and the pursuit of love that is recognized by the reader with deep compassion.
The novella Ballad of a Sad Café exemplifies how love can occasionally be one-sided resulting in pain that stems from adoring someone who doesn’t reciprocate the sentiment. McCullers clearly defines her opinion of love when she states "Love is the joint experience between two persons but the fact it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved… love is a solitary thing” (McCullers 215). The story begins with an illustration of the town, which in itself is lifeless and bleak. There is little to nothing there aside from a cotton mill, the houses where workers live and a dismal main street. McCullers states “the town is lonesome, sad, and like a place that is far off and estranged from all other places in the world” (McCullers 197). Love is the main theme of the story which is shared by three unconventional characters: Miss Amelia, Cousin Lymon, and Marvin Macy. (McCullers 215). The different characters appear to denote that love and desirability may n...
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...Issue 2 (1975): 47-52. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
Gleeson-White, Sarah. "Revisiting the Southern Grotesque: Mikhail Bakhtin and the Case of Carson McCullers." Southern Literary Journal. Vol.33.Issue 2 (2001): 108-123. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
Kohler, Dayton. "Carson McCullers: Variations on a Theme." College English. Vol, 13.Issue 1 (1951): 1-8. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
McCullers, Carson. Collected Stories of Carson McCullers including The Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. 1998. First Mariner Books, 1987. Print.
Millar, Darren. "The Utopian Function of Affect in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Café." Southern Literary Journal. 41.Number 2 (2009): 87-105. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
Young, Marguerite. "Metaphysical Fiction The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers." Kenyon Review. Vol. 9 Issue 1 (1947): 151-155. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
In All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy reveals the limitations of a romantic ideology in the real world. Through his protagonist, John Grady Cole, the author offers three main examples of a man’s attempt to live a romantic life in the face of hostile reality: a failed relationship with an unattainable woman; a romantic and outdated relationship with nature; and an idealistic decision to live as an old-fashioned cowboy in an increasingly modern world. In his compassionate description of John Grady, McCarthy seems to endorse these romantic ideals. At the same time, the author makes clear the harsh reality and disappointments of John Grady’s chosen way of life.
Louise, the unfortunate spouse of Brently Mallard dies of a supposed “heart disease.” Upon the doctor’s diagnosis, it is the death of a “joy that kills.” This is a paradox of happiness resulting into a dreadful ending. Nevertheless, in reality it is actually the other way around. Of which, is the irony of Louise dying due to her suffering from a massive amount of depression knowing her husband is not dead, but alive. This is the prime example to show how women are unfairly treated. If it is logical enough for a wife to be this jovial about her husband’s mournful state of life then she must be in a marriage of never-ending nightmares. This shows how terribly the wife is being exploited due her gender in the relationship. As a result of a female being treated or perceived in such a manner, she will often times lose herself like the “girl
Carson McCuller's novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, takes place in a small town in the deep south during the mid-twentieth century. The book closely follows a diverse group of five residents that are loosely tied together. They include Singer, a deaf mute, Benedict Copeland, a well educated black doctor, Jake Blount, a politically zealous transient, Mick Kelly, a young girl, and Biff Brannon, a middle aged man that owns a diner. As the book progresses the characters find themselves in non-ideal circumstances. The characters all want something they can't have and it gradually becomes clear that they are powerless to obtain it. The outlook continues to grow bleak for the characters as time passes. By the end of the novel the characters that are still alive find themselves with little hope and no happiness. Hopelessness is an overriding theme and can be seen more clearly by examining each characters situation.
Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer An Introduction to Short Fiction. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 1999.
Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer – An Introduction to Short Fiction. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Print.
Dead at the age of thirty nine years young, Flannery O’Conner lost her fight with lupus, but had won her place as one of America’s great short story writers and essayist. Born in Savannah, Georgia, within the borders of America’s “Bible Belt”, she is raised Catholic, making O’Connor a minority in the midst of the conservative Protestant and Baptist faiths observed in the Southern United States. In the midst of losing her father at the age fifteen, followed by her diagnosis and struggle with the same physical illness that took him, as well as her strong unwavering faith in the Catholic Church are crucial components of O’Connor’s literary style which mold and guide her stories of loss, regret, and redemption. Flannery O’Connor’s writings may be difficult to comprehend at times, but the overall theme of finding grace, sometimes in the midst of violence or tragedy, can be recognized in the body of her works. O’Connor’s stories are written about family dysfunction, internal angst towards life or a loved one, and commonly take place on a farm, plantation or a family home in the American South. Her stories of ethical and moral challenge blur the boundaries between her Catholic faith and values, which also include the values of the other religious faiths surrounding her in her youth, simply writing of the pain and struggles which people from all walks of life commonly share.
The Lais of Marie de France is a compilation of short stories that delineate situations where love is just. Love is presented as a complex emotion and is portrayed as positive, while at other times, it is portrayed as negative. The author varies on whether or not love is favorable as is expressed by the outcomes of the characters in the story, such as lovers dying or being banished from the city. To demonstrate, the author weaves stories that exhibit binaries of love. Two distinct types of love are described: selfish and selfless. Love is selfish when a person leaves their current partner for another due to covetous reasons. Contrarily, selfless love occurs when a lover leaves to be in a superior relationship. The stark contrast between the types of love can be analyzed to derive a universal truth about love.
Love has many definitions and can be interpreted in many different ways. William Maxwell demonstrates this in his story “Love”. Maxwell opens up his story with a positive outlook on “Love” by saying, “Miss Vera Brown, she wrote on the blackboard, letter by letter in flawlessly oval palmer method. Our teacher for fifth grade. The name might as well have been graven in stone” (1). By the end of the story, the students “love” for their teachers no longer has a positive meaning, because of a turn in events that leads to a tragic ending. One could claim that throughout the story, Maxwell uses short descriptive sentences with added details that foreshadow the tragic ending.
Gaitskill’s “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” focuses on the father and his downward spiral of feeling further disconnected with his family, especially his lesbian daughter, whose article on father-daughter relationships stands as the catalyst for the father’s realization that he’d wronged his daughter and destroyed their relationship. Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” focuses on Mel and his attempt to define, compare, and contrast romantic love, while leaving him drunk and confused as he was before. While both of my stories explore how afflicted love traumatizes the psyche and seem to agree that love poses the greatest dilemma in life, and at the same time that it’s the most valued prospect of life, the two stories differ in that frustrated familial love causes Gaitskill's protagonist to become understandable and consequently evokes sympathy from the reader, but on the other hand frustrated romantic love does nothing for Carver's Protagonist, except keep him disconnected from his wife and leaving him unchanged, remaining static as a character and overall unlikable. In comparing “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, together they suggest that familial love is more important than romantic love, which we relentlessly strive to achieve often forgetting that we’ll forever feel alone without familial love, arguably the origin of love itself.
The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe Throughout the novel The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers, there is an evident recurring theme of the past. Ever present in the story is a feeling of unrequited love. illustrated through looking at the parallels of the intertwined relationships between three separate individuals. Miss Amelia Evans, Cousin Lymon Willis, and Marvin Macy, are the players involved in this grotesque love triangle. The feelings they have for each other are what drives the story, and are significant enough that the prosperity of the entire town hinges upon them.
When Zora Hurston wrote this novel, she wanted to explain how a young women search for her own identity. This young woman would go through three relationships that took her to the end of the journey of a secure sense of independence. She wanted to find her own voice while in a relationship, but she also witnessed hate, pain, and love through the journey. When Logan Killicks came she witnessed the hate because he never connected physically or emotionally to her. Jody Starks, to what she assumed, as the ticket to freedom. What she did not know was the relationship came with control and pain. When she finally meets Tea Cake she was in love, but had to choose life over love in the end.
Charters, A. (2011). The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction (8th ed.). Boston: Bedfor/St. Martin's.
Janie was with a variety of men throughout her life but she only allowed three of them to wed her. She faced many negative opinions, judgments, and misfortune; however, she was still capable of moving forward despite it all. Janie was born into a world in which her looks made it easy for her, but also was her downfall. Many guys looked at Janie as just a beautiful woman—no more. None of them could connect with her on an intellectual level or valued what she really had to offer, except Tea Cake. Janie’s lack of maternal and paternal relationships with her parents left her seeking to be loved. Although, Nanny Crawford, Janie’s grandmother, did her best to raise her; Janie still had emptiness in her heart. Janie showed her disregard for her own happiness when she agreed to an arranged marriage to Logan Killicks, set-up by the grandmother. Nanny Crawford felt that love was...
Carson McCullers was a well-known writer who came from the South; she became famous overnight after she wrote her first book: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. She wrote many different types of books during her lifetime, with over a dozen books and numerous essays, most of them often touched on the topic of love. Though she wrote about love, it was the typical type of love that you’d expect such as romanticism, but rather, it was the dark type of love (Source 4). Many critics might question why she chose to write those dark and gloomy books; it was because of her love-struggling life that she endured. She met her husband, got married then divorced. At this moment, she was going through too much pain in life. This was when she wrote her first book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which gained her overnight fame among the literature community. She often met new and interesting people in her life, which inspired her to write her novels in such a unique way. After the death of her husband due to a suicidal act, her life was starting to crumble down. With health issues from her habits and inheritance, her life was not wel; this eventually led to her death when she reached the age of fifty in 1967. In The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers portrayed her characters similar to her personal life (Source 5), the people that she met (Source 3), and her personal feelings.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...