The question of happiness is a question of the ages. There is no way to truly define happiness, only to feel it. Few, if any, can claim to know the true answer to either question. In Cao Xueqin’s The Story of the Stone, many moral lessons are taught. The first of the lessons is not in learning or achieving happiness, but on what happiness is not. The other ideal that Cao Xueqin teaches is how important enlightenment is to personal satisfaction. These morals are traditional Buddhist and Taoist guides for attaining happiness. These teachings are critically important and therefore must be learnt by the main characters of Baoyu and Daiyu. The story is incredibly constructed and the path to enlightenment lies parallel and sometimes even crosses the path of errors. The story attempts to teach that the truths in life can not be discovered until many mistakes are done and learned from.
The two characters that exemplify romantic love are Baoyu and Daiyu. They are both born into an unusual circumstance of extreme wealth. The environment that they live in and understand is one of materialism and social appearances. A description of a typical meal for them is comparable none, “In addition to these, there were numerous other maids…. Yet not so much as a cough was heard throughout the whole of the meal.” (277) The families were incredibly rich, more so than the average citizen could ever dream. For Baoyu and Daiyu, though, this works to their advantage. Instead of being forced to focus on food or labor for survival, they can completely focus on their relationship and nurture it. In their time, unlike current years, marriage was done to combine wealth to survive, not for pure ecstasy. Whether a couple was in love was insignificant, marriages we...
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... enlightenment. Passions are unavoidable. What’s important is what they gain through the hardships of passion.
In that regard, passions are not completely useless. If anything, they are required for Baoyu’s and Daiyu’s enlightenment. Passions, such as romantic love, serve as a pathway to the Void (Truth). If not, the world of Form (Illusion) would be a bottomless pit, with no escape. The purpose of the land of Illusion is to provide Passion, as well as the mistakes that go along with it. That is why the lesson of The Story of the Stone must be experienced by its characters. Yes, one can attempt to go through life by shutting away all passions. But, that is to shut away what makes one human. People pride themselves in making as few errors as possible. But, perhaps making foolish, inevitable mistakes is the way to obtain truth. Truth obtained through trial and error.
The Art of Courtly Love was written by a monk at the end of the 11th century. The task was put on him to write a guide book so-to-speak for how the wealthy and powerful should go about falling in love, marriage, and things related to it. Obviously, a monk had no personal experience in these matters, so his writings must have been from observed experiences. These writings show how the members of the court truly were in these...
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.?
Don Aker makes the novel The First Stone very interesting and intriguing without question because of his effective writing style. He uses simple, understandable, yet powerful vocabulary to draw the reader into each moment of the plot. The sentence structure was not very complex, but I think it was quite appropriate for a teenager to read. The use of the third- person omniscient point of view in the novel really helps the reader experience the story on a more personal level. The author’s narrative voice takes the front seat, and one is able to get inside the mind of the protagonist – Reef, a teenager who is piecing together the puzzle that is his life, gradually delving into deeper emotions and relationships with important characters and figures in the novel. The characters in the text Reef and Leeza are teenagers who have gone through some difficult events in their young lives. The reader is able to relive their memories and experiences, with flashbacks that Don Aker incorporates in the novel. The climax of the story develops quite naturally, with a sense of cohesiveness that is clearly present. As each chapter passes the reader has been give some insight about Leeza as the author throughout the novel, has moved back and forth between the perspectives of the two principal characters. Little by little, as time progresses, a turn of events causes the two main characters to be in the same place, in which Reef would change both their lives forever. By making two teenagers as the main focal points of the novel, the author really wants the target audience to feel a connection, and relate the novel to their lives or someone they...
In every story, there is a protagonist and an antagonist, good and evil, love and hatred, one the antithesis of the other. To preserve children’s innocence, literature usually emphasizes on the notion that love is insurmountable and that it is the most beautiful and powerful force the world knows of, yet Gen’s and Carmen’s love, ever glorious, never prevails. They each have dreams of a future together, “he takes Carmen’s hand and leads her out the gate at the end of the front walkway… together they… simply walk out into the capital city of the host country. Nobody knows to stop them. They are not famous and nobody cares. They go to an airport and find a flight back to Japan and they live there, together, happily and forever” in which their love is the only matter that holds significance (261). The china
The Dhammapada speaks a universal truth, that “desire is unquenchable,” and explains that “he who wishes to awake, consumes his desires joyfully” (Chapter 14). These statements prove similar to the four noble truths, that to live is to suffer, and desire causes suffering; therefore, one cannot avoid temptation because it is ubiquitous. When explaining the outcomes of “craving pleasure or nursing pain,” the Buddha articulates that “there is only sorrow” (Chapter 16). Desire clearly only causes difficulty when attempting to achieve Nirvana, and the Dhammapada seeks to convey the importance of clearing the mind and purifying one’s thoughts. Continuing to contrast lust and happiness, the Buddha explains that “there is pleasure and there is bliss, forgo the first to possess the second” (Chapter 21). One cannot have genuine jubilation while yearnings and allurements cloud the mind. Expressed throughout Buddhist teachings and a main religious text, the action of overpowering desire and lewd thoughts proves a crucial step in eventually reaching
In The Lover, Duras tells the largely autobiographical story of a fifteen-year-old French girl’s amazing love affair with an older Chinese man in Vietnam, the place colonized by France during the 1930s. “She” was just a young girl attending a boarding school, living with an abnormal family, which had a life poor as beggars and violent as gangsters; “he” is the son of a Chinese millionaire, and settled in the colonies as one of “the financiers of Chinese origin who own all the working-class housing” (Duras 33). They meet each other on the ferry crossing the Mekong and on that day they start an unusual relationship. Such plot sounds like an ordinary love story—“She” is fragile and helpless while “he” is the symbol of power and wealth and has a strong sense of protecting her. They fall in love at the first sight and look forward to their everyday meeting. Then how could “The Lover” become an exception from the general standard love relationship? The phenomenon of cross-racial dating is too superficial to make the story rebellious, but the real consciousness behind the race—which known as stereotype—works.
Passion is the key to every person's actions: passion for a career fuels people through school, passion for another human leads to the next generation, passion for life is what makes each of us get up every morning. However, an extraordinary amount of passion can lead people to rash decisions and actions, which is exactly what happens in Peter Shaffer's play, Equus. Passion of this amount, when expressed, is usually known as insanity, or madness.
A wise man once said “Man is only great when he acts from passion.” When you hear the word passion, the first thing that might come to your mind is something related to love, and you’re not entirely wrong. According to Merriam- Webster’s dictionary, passion is defined as a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something or a strong feeling (such as anger) that causes you to act in a dangerous way. All in all, it is a strong feeling, be it happiness, sadness, anger or liberality. You can be passionate about many things such as love, sports, food, or intimacy. However, it can also mean having a strong yearning for something.
desires can be engaged without reason. Their thoughts are consumed by their desires for the
Early in Horney's essay, she defines passion and discusses why it is rare. People do not feel safe putting all of their faith and trust in only one other person. Horney explains that self-preservation is part of human instinct, and people have a fear of losing themselves in their loved one.
In the play “Romeo and Juliet”, Shakespeare shows that love has power to control one’s actions, feelings, and the relationship itself through the bond between a destined couple. The passion between the pair grew strong enough to have the capability to do these mighty things. The predestined newlyweds are brought down a rocky road of obstacles learning love’s strength and the meaning of love.
The Symposium, The Aeneid, and Confessions help demonstrate how the nature of love can be found in several places, whether it is in the mind, the body or the soul. These texts also provide with eye-opening views of love as they adjust our understanding of what love really is. By giving us reformed spectrum of love, one is able to engage in introspective thinking and determine if the things we love are truly worthy of our sentiment.
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
Ever since the dawn of time, love has been a fundamental part of every human’s lives. Northern Lights demonstrates to us that the love of a friend or the love of spouse can create either great power or bring misery and unhappiness. Iorek and Lyra are a perfect example a powerful relationship. Iorek has been denied power, Lyra is on a quest to find power and with out the love the two shared as friends, neither would be able to complete their missions. However, this is not to say the love and power are a perfect combination. To illustrate, look at Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel. “His hands, still clasped her head, tensed suddenly and drew her towards him in a passionate kiss. Lyra thought this looked more like cruelty than love” both are powerful in their own right, but neither is truly happy with the other. They cannot agree or conform with each others beliefs of Dust, meaning no physical love could keep them together. Although there was a strong romantic interest between the two, both came from different sides of power, her religion and he science. Northern Lights shows its readers that when true love is evident, than true power is achievable.
Oftentimes, the idea of romance between people is greatly misunderstood. The never-ending thoughts and concepts about falling head over heels to someone have always been significant—and most of the time, people, no matter what their position in the society is, find themselves wondering about the possibilities of finding their own soulmate. In William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” the poet tells a tragic love story about two young lovers. A story that depicts one’s emotions and how relationships among people are vastly influenced by their impulsive