The Emotional Nature of Love in Love is a Fallacy and Romeo and Juliet - Essay Example

Prof’s The Emotional Nature of Love in “Love is a Fallacy” and “Romeo and Juliet” Love is something that is incredibly difficult to define. Every individual probably has their own, slightly different definition of love that fits them personally but may not apply to everyone else. Generally, however, I believe all of those definitions would treat love as an emotional rather than a reasonable response. Relationships can be based on reason, self interest, or many other things, but that does not mean that love is necessarily based on any of those things – love and relationships are not necessarily connected. Love is an emotional response, something that can interact with logic, sometimes agreeing with it, sometimes overpowering it, and sometimes falling to it, but they are inherently different things. Love is probably the most often used theme in works of fiction – it is powerful, evocative, can easily create conflict, and people care about it more than almost anything else. Shakespeare is one of the English language’s most famous playwrights largely because of his ability to depict the emotional rollercoaster that is a romantic relationship. In the story “Romeo and Juliet” Shakespeare shows the essentially illogical, emotional nature of love. This story does emotionally heighten the importance of love, both by seemingly contrasting love with death on several occasions and by artificially raising the stakes of love by making the two lovers part of rival families bent on a blood feud. “Romeo and Juliet” and “Love is a Fallacy” actually agree on the most important point about love: that it is an emotional response that is separate from reason. The stories differ, however, in their portrayal of love: in “Romeo and Juliet” love acts as an uncontrollable force, whereas love is depicted as something one can choose in “Love is a Fallacy,” and “Romeo and Juliet” displays a selfless love, while “Love is a Fallacy” depicts love as entirely driven by self-interest. Both “Love is a Fallacy” and “Romeo and Juliet” depict love as an entirely emotional response, devoid largely of reason and calculation. In “Love is a Fallacy,” the main character begins the story by indicating that he “coveted” Polly, his roommate’s girlfriend, for “entirely cerebral reasons,” contrasting those sharply with love (Shulman). Coveting something is very different from loving something, and this contrast of love and coveting shows that love, unlike covetousness, cannot be a calculated thing. In fact, the main character does not even use the word “love” until the end of the poem, in a setting where it seems like a calculated move to try to acquire the thing he covets, Polly. Polly cleverly shows that every expression of love that the main character can possibly create is a logical fallacy of some sort – again highlighting the emotional nature of love, which falls in the face of reason. “Romeo and Juliet” also depicts love as something that is entirely emotional, because the protagonists regularly commit acts that are entirely unreasonable and in fact harmful to themselves and others because of love. Juliet, for instance, asks Romeo to “deny [his] father and refuse [his] name” in order to form a romantic relationship with her (Shakespeare, 2.2). It is entirely unreasonable to expect someone to give up their family and their whole life, but love, clearly, is not a reasonable thing – Romeo does in fact give everything up for her. Furthermore, both Romeo and Juliet commit suicide at the end of the story when they think their lover is dead, showing an almost hysterically emotional response. Clearly, love and logic are entirely separate things in both “Love is a Fallacy” and “Romeo and Juliet” Though both stories agree that love is “fallacious” in the sense that it is illogical, they disagree on how love affects one’s self. In “Love is a Fallacy” all of the characters are able to choose whom they are attracted to, whereas in “Romeo and Juliet” love is treated as an irresistible force. In “Love is a Fallacy” there is a moment for each character where they must make a decision about their romantic relationships, and in each case they are able to simply make a choice on love. The main character decides to go after Polly for “cerebral reasons,” Petey makes the cold calculation that a racoon coat would be better for him and his life than his girlfriend, Polly, and Polly decides that it would be better for her to be with someone who has a racoon coat than the person who spent a great deal of time teaching her to think (Shulman). They all show that they can choose love – though perhaps this simply demonstrates that love is entirely absent from this story, as they seem to be making rational decisions. In “Romeo and Juliet” however, love is not seen as a choice, but rather as almost a force of nature. Romeo says “love is the east, and Juliet is the sun” (Shakespeare, 2.2), which very clearly demonstrates how powerful the force of love is, by comparing it to the never-changing, omnipresent sun. “Love is a Fallacy” treats love in almost a blaze way, showing characters choosing to take off and put on love as easily as they would a racoon coat. Romeo and Juliet, on the other hand, shows love as an irresistible force of nature tirelessly driving the eventually tragedy at the end of the work. The final difference between love as it is depicted in “Love is a Fallacy” and “Romeo and Juliet” is the nature of love, whether it is selfless or inherently selfish. In “Love is a Fallacy,” love is inherently selfish. As demonstrated above, people in this work seem to be able to make choices about love. And what they choose is always entirely self-interested, from the main characters desire to acquire a wife to use when he is a lawyer, to Polly’s desire to be with a man in a racoon coat at the end of the work. Character’s romantic relationships are entirely based on self-interest. Again, as with the matter of choice, this may simply indicate that none of the characters actually love each other, but are only using each-other in a college game of popularity. In “Romeo and Juliet,” however, both characters make significant sacrifices in the name of love, including family relationships, happiness (at times) and eventually their own lives. This shows that love as an emotional response has a more noble aspect than the cold, calculating ‘love’ (if that is even what it is) portrayed in “Love is a Fallacy.” “Love is a Fallacy” is essentially an anti-love treatise, whereas “Romeo and Juliet” is one of the most powerful love stories ever told. It is interesting, then, that they agree on a fundamental point – that love is inherently illogical, emotional, and, to a degree, fallacious. After agreeing upon that fact, however, they diverge sharply, with “Love is a Fallacy” creating an image of that can be overcome by reason and self-interest, whereas “Romeo and Juliet” shows love that is so powerful that nothing can stop it, not even death. This may indicate that “Love is a Fallacy” does not actually show love, as the story itself says that love is emotional, and none of the characters seems to make an emotional response towards the others. Read More