Tarun Tejpal’s The Alchemy of Desire(2005) is a narrative about Desire .The novel opens with the quote: “Love is not the greatest glue between two people, Sex is” and ends with “Sex is not the greatest glue between two people, Love is….” (The Alchemy of Desire, 3,518)
Amid the quotes, Tarun Tejpal explores what he calls, “The Alchemy of Desire”. The word ‘Alchemy’ has a scientific origin which means creation, combination or transformation from something very original and base to very valuable.(Concise Oxford English Dictionary). The main aim is to explore the value of Desire. The desire which can foster jealousy, distraught, truth and hallucination reality. The story of the novel revolves around a young couple from a small town in India , penniless but ingloriously in love with each other , move to the big city , where the man works intensely on a novel ,with the support of his wife, stopping only to feed his incessant desire for his beautiful wife. They both left Delhi for an old house in the fog masked Himalayas .They purchased this house from a man called Stephen. While renovating their rickety new home, the young man unearths a chest full of diaries written by Catherine . It revealed a series of intense relationships (sexual and otherwise)with (and between) various Indian men ,
including prince . The narrator cannot pull himself away from his wife for the first time . His involvement in diary made him to find out the truth of his own desires and passions.
To support the theme of desire, the theory of Hierarchy of needs given by Abraham Maslow is suggested, which suits best to the theme of the novel. He is a famous Psychologist who has given a motivation theory that lays out five growth needs. The desire is a need which w...
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...rite .He started with physical, moved to Karma, and reached to Satya. Since he has understood the motive of his life and also that desire creates love, beauty and art . He took his pen and wrote:
Sex is not the greatest glue between the two people, Love is ….
(The Alchemy of Desire,518)
But in the end the readers are left to an unreciprocated question, “What drives the human soul, desire for love or love for desire?”
Works Cited
1. Hall .S. Calvin, Lindzey Gardner, Campbell .B. John , Theories of Personalities, fourth ed., Canada,1998
2. Gupta Rohit , The Alchemy of Desire , Spectrum , 29-july-2009. web, June 15 2009, http://rohitgupta14.wordpress.com
3. Soanes Catherine , Stevenson Angus, Concise Oxford Dictionary , eleventh ed.,2004.
4.Tejpal Tarun, The Alchemy of Desire . London, Picador,2006 (all textual references have been taken from the novel )
In John Updike’s short story “A&P,” the reader witnesses the power of desire. Three girls walk into the store, A&P, in nothing but bikinis. They were looking for “Fancy Herring Snacks” for one of the girl’s mother. The girls were being kicked out by the manger; however, the cashier quits because he desired one of the girl’s attention and tried to be the hero. The poem “The desire of love-power” by Sri Chinmoy, illustrates that desiring something can change a person’s life for the better, or for the worse. This poem, like the short story, explores the power of desire.
Janet M. Ellerby analyzes “Lust” in her essay titled, “Lust”. In this essay, Ellerby goes through and gives a brief but accurate summary of the short story. Then she gives her interpretations of what this story was supposed to mean. She finally talks about the techniques Susan Minot used in order to get the atmosphere and emotions she wanted the reader to experience. I agree with how Ellerby interprets this story and it will be evident throughout this paper. Because I agree with what this essay had to say, I will be able to use it as evidence to support my ideas.
The unceasing question of what defines love continually inspires writers to share their perceptions with their audience. Throughout our childhood we are naturally inclined to believe and expect what media depicts for us. Disney movies such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White all follow the standard plot of a beautiful girl and a handsome young man falling in love without any complexity to their relationship. Their newly discovered love for one another forms quite simply throughout the movie and then they live happily ever after. As we mature, our innocence fades and the naïve perception of love slowly begins to be disassembled as we are brought into reality. Simply observing our own parents’ relationship can prove that love does
Senay, Suzanne. Canadian Scholars’ Press: Custom Coursebook Series. “Philosophy of Love and Sex – Second Edition.”
Sexuality, in the United States alone, has been become socially acceptable. It is not uncommon to see sexual innuendos in advertising, sexual acts or remarks on televisions or movies. It has become more and more prevalent in our society. It is no wonder that sexual addiction, specifically internet pornography, is a rapidly growing concern. Internet pornography is a multibillion dollar industry that is continuously growing. With the introduction of the internet and the World Wide Web, internet pornography addiction has sky rocketed. It has been inaccurately believed that only men were addicted to internet pornography; however this is not the case. Women, men, Christians, atheists, students, veterans, heterosexuals, homosexuals, Americans, Asians, etc., can all become addicted and fall victim to it. Understanding what it is, where it came from, and how to seek treatment and the treatment options out there are imperative for people today. Internet pornography and sexual addiction do not have to control the addict’s life. There is hope and recovery is possible. Web of Desires
To fully comprehend a work you cannot just read it. You must read it, analyze it, question it, and even then question what you are questioning. In Richard Rodriguez’s The Achievement of Desire we are presented with a young Richard Rodriguez and follow him from the start of his education until he is an adult finally having reached his goals. In reference to the way he reads for the majority of his education, it can be said he reads going with the grain, while he reads a large volume of books, the quality of his reading is lacking.
Many love stories these days share some key features that develop into amazing stories. However, they also have their differences which set them apart from each other. Some stories take a significant advantage of an intriguing human element, passion. Passion is an intense desire for something or someone. For instance, Irene Nemirovsky in “Fire in the Blood” described how passion can change one’s life for the worse.
Love is heavily intertwined with being human. Indeed, everyone doubtlessly experiences some form of love in their life, be it towards objects or people. This love is organized into three types; eros, philos, and agape. Eros, likely the most common kind of love in western culture, denotes sexual desire, or lust. Philos covers love among friends, or love for the purpose to gain something. Agape, the rarest of all, encapsulates selfless love, or the willingness to die for another. All forms are present within the three works, Voltaire’s Candide, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, albeit in differing levels.
Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2013). Theories of personality (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth.
Love is pure, divine and affection. Henrik Ibsen through his book “A Doll’s House”, shows that love is the basis of life. Through her book The Awakening, Kate Chopin shows that love is not something you find, but love is something that finds you. In the movie The Stepford Wives 1975, Bryan Forbes introduces love as possession. Whereas, in the movie The Stepford Wives 2004, Frank OZ defines love in a distinct way. He shows that true love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own. In these four texts, A Doll’s House, The Awakening, The Stepford Wives (1975 and 2004), the authors and the directors present the idea that love is the pathway to true happiness.
Schultz, D.P. & Schultz, S.E. (2009). Theories of Personality, Ninth Edition. US: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Magnavita, J. J. (2002). Theories of personality: Contemporary approaches to the science of personality. New York: Wiley.
Tenzin, Gyatso and Jamyang Gawai Lodro. Essence of the Heart Sutra. Trans. Geshe Thupte Jinpa. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2002. i-xii, 1-179. Print.
Desire can come in a variety of circumstances, whether it is nostalgia or something looking forward to in the future. The future could hold material or sentimental desires wanting to be achieved. In Robert Frost’s poem A Boundless Moment it states, “He halted in the wind, and - what was that. Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost? He stood there bringing March against his thought, And yet too ready to believe the most”. The traveler in this poem encounters a wanting and an appreciation. Many of life’s wants go unnoticed until they begin with an instance of realization, followed by chasing a desire and thinking back on missed chances. Our stages in our life encounter this cycle in our everyday environments. Desire isn’t always in our thoughts in today’s society. It is essential that we learn from the written experiences of the past to recognize desire’s variety of roles in society.
... hampers one of the most important elements needed to reach enlightenment – Reason. People in love do irrational things without considering the consequences of their actions and how they may affect not only themselves, but others too. They are more concerned with instant gratification – whether for themselves or for the person whom they love. Love can also be thought of as being another temptation that is placed before man. It is a path that a man on the road to enlightenment should not take, no matter how great the benefits may seem. The individual must realize that love ultimately leads to the destruction of enlightenment. The most dangerous thing about love is that once an individual succumbs to it, it is extremely hard to turn back. For this reason love may be the most potent out of all the temptations and tests man must overcome to reach enlightenment.