Masters and Servants of Love - Essay Example

Assignment WHEN WORKERS AND SERVANTS MAKE EMPLOYERS WORK Due WHEN WORKERS AND SERVANTS MAKE EMPLOYERS WORKMost of the actions and decisions taken by the employers or masters, as they were depicted in “The Oval Portrait” and “The Moonbeam” were indeed influenced by the background characters and the quest of the masters to gain fulfillment and satisfaction from them. But as a matter of fact, these background characters cannot be considered as the true agents of reason in the two stories.

For example in “The Oval Portrait”, Poe speaks of the quest of a master whose desire and reason is to get his newly wedded wife portrayed. However, there is a true agent of reason found in the love that the master had for painting as a hobby rather than for the admiration of this new found wife. In the same way, even in “The Moonbeam” we read of the master diligently seeking to find the woman he believed had crossed his path, the true agent of reason was in the fact that he easily fell in love with every other woman and not that he had a special form of love for the woman he was diligently searching for.

Indeed the mentalities held by the romantic employers can make one argue that the minor characters challenge and question the authority and power of their employers. First and foremost, it is realized that the reason for the search of romance and love was in the fact that the romantic employers had some authority and power to seek for whatever it was that they wanted to have. A typical example of this is the comparison that can be drawn between the artist and the poor and innocent girl she married.

Within the girl’s heart, she knew there was something going on about her romantic employer that she would have stopped but her status did not permit that. To this end, Poe (1850) wrote “And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter.” As with Manrique in “The Moonbeam”, the power and authority he had as a nobleman was the major pushing force behind his search for love and not because he needed true love. According to Oscar Wilde in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, ““Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.” (p. 113).

What this quote relates to the two stories under discussion is that for the personal and social growth and development of main characters to be complete, they often need to be pushed by workers and servants, who under normal circumstance do not have any regard in society. Indeed in both cases of “The Oval Portrait” and “The Moonbeam”, we read of main characters whose edification as personal and social beings depended on the direct outcome of what they were seeking to achieve from their workers and servants.

It is not surprising therefore that after several days of search when Manrique came to realize that he was only chasing after the moon and not a beautiful lady who had come to pass, he remarked that “love and fame are as elusive as a moonbeam”. Based on this remark, it can be concluded with all authority that workers and servants are indeed a key source of romantic innovation and such innovation is directed at their employers. This is because in the eventual decisions that were taken by the main characters on their perception and ideologies of love, were directly influenced by the results of the actions that they took towards their servants or workers.

It is not surprising therefore that in “The Oval Portrait”, the main character came to link love and art together as rival components of a person’s life that could actually lead to death. On the part of Manrique in “The Moonbeam”, the realization was that life was not all about the search of love and that love did not actually exist in a tangible form.Cited WorksEdgar A. Poe. “The Oval Portrait” United States: Grahams Magazine. 1842. Print.Gustavo A. Bécquer’s “The Moonbeam.

” Madrid: Legendary Press Limited. 1898. Print.Wilde, Oscar. “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, New York: Random House: Modern LibraryPrint. 1890. Print.