One Word for Love in the English Language - Essay Example

While there is only one word for love in the English language, this single word gets used to describe situations that are vastly different. For instance, in Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” we see a very self-sacrificing image of love. Gregor Samsa must work to support his family at a job he hates and for a boss he can’t stand. He does all this because he is the only person that can support his family. Gregor obviously loves his family, otherwise there would be no reason for him to put himself through this. There is a debt to be repaid on his parents behalf, and Gregor has agreed to repay it for them out of a sense of duty to those that he loves, his family. Also, when Gregor has turned into a bug, we find the family to be self-sacrificing as well. Even though it distresses her to do so, Gergor’s sister feels a sense of duty to him, and she makes sure he is fed. When at first he cannot eat his favorite meal, his sister does everything that she can in order to find food that he will eat. She loves him, and out of a sense of duty she tries to feed him and keep him alive, even though he no longer resembles the person that he used o be in any way, shape, or form. The family has to sacrifice some of their own food money so that Gregor can eat, and this shows that they love him, even though they can’t stand to look at him. In Robert Frost’s “Home Burial,” we see two different conceptions of love through the act of mourning. In the poem, a married couple’s child has died, and the grave is on their property. The husband and wife have very different ways of coping with the loss of the child. The wife, Amy, stands at the window and stares at the grave. She is in a constant state of sorrow, and she can barely do anything because she has been so greatly affected. Because of her love for her child, she has grown distant from her husband, who is grieving in a different way. She doesn’t understand this, as she says “If you had any feelings, you who dug/ With your own hand—How could you?—his little grave” (72-73). To her the only appropriate way to grieve is to show it constantly, to be living it at all times. The husband is still obviously grieving for his child, but he can’t seem to show her that he is. He still loves his child and is in mourning, but he doesn’t do so in the same manner as his wife does: “You—oh, you think the talk is all; I must go—/Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you—“ (112-113). He doesn’t talk about it the way that she does, or show it as much outwardly, but he is trying to explain to his wife that his still grieves in his own way, and then he gives up trying at this particular point in the poem. The main conception of love shown in this poem is that people will miss their loved ones once they have died, and people need to find their own way to grieve for this lost loved one. T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is called a love song, but it is anything but. The speaker of the poem is a person that has been paralyzed by life and finds that he can’t accomplish anything anymore. He states at one point “And I have known the arms already, known them all—/Arms that are braceleted and white and bare” (62-63). He is unable to deal with people directly, so he has reduced the memory of the women that he has known down to their arms. He has become so paralyzed, in fact, that he can’t decide as to whether to eat a piece of fruit: “Shall I wear my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach?” (122). This image of love is of a person that is paralyzed by it and doesn’t know how to deal with it. The source of the speaker’s condition is not made known, so we can’t know if love did this or if was forced upon the person by the psychic distress of living in the modern world. In Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,’ we see a physical aspect of love being expressed. The speaker of the poem is attempting to convince his female friend to have sex with him, and the conceit he uses is that people are limited in the time that they have on this earth, so we might as well take advantage of it while we have the chance. He starts off by saying “Had we but world enough, and time,/ This coyness would be no crime” (1-2), immediately bringing the time aspect to the front. What he accomplishes in the poem is to connect our physical desires to a time frame. While we are alive we have this physical yearning to be intimate with another person, and part of this has to do with the limited amount of time that we have to be alive during. To the speaker of the poem, to fully experience and embrace love, even if its just the physical aspect of love, then we should satiate our desires whenever we feel the need. Holding back and being “coy” has no place in love, as it only interferes and keeps people from experiencing love, or the physical act of love, which the speaker does not differentiate between. Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is another poem about death in the family, though it is directed at the dying at not at a person that has died just yet. The title line of the poem suggests that a person is dying. In the poem, we find that it is the speaker’s father. The speaker has this image of the father, and it is a rather noble one. Because of this, the speaker is asking his father to keep this dignity as he is dying and not simply let himself be extinguished. The speaker loves his father, and because he loves him to the extent that he does, he does not want to see his father die ignobly. In order to accomplish this, the speaker tells the father to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (3). The speaker has already accepted that his father’s death is inevitable, but he does not think that that should mean that his father should simply waste away. The speaker loves his father and respects him, and this is why he wants him to have a more noble death. Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” also shows a relationship between a father and son, but it is not the same in this poem. There are two very different interpretations of the poem. One is of a father that has gotten drunk and is having some fun with his son, while the other is of a father that has gotten drunk and is being abusive with his son. Even though both interpretations are possible, there is still love from the son to the father being expressed in the poem. The love in the poem expressed is of a love and approval that was desired from the father. In considering the abusive father scenario, we can see a strong desire in the last lines: “Then waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt” (15-16). Even though the father is being abusive, this last image of the child clinging to the shirt of his father shows that there is still the desire for attention from the father. The fact that it is apparent that this poem is supposed to be the adult version of the child looking back on his father shows that he is still thinking about it, and still thinking about wishing for the approval of his father. He has tried to show his father that he can keep up with his father: “But I hung on like death:/Such Waltzing was not easy” (3-4). The speaker shows he loves the father because he is still trying to fix the relationship in his head. Read More