Is there love without control - Essay Example

Eros love is largely based on control. The participants strong sentiments for each other sometimes manipulate their own desires as well as the desires of their partners and feel betrayed if the other party does not strive to follow the rules of the game. Stephen Mitchell (1997) in his paper "Psychoanalysis and the Degradation of Romance," wrote that, “Intimate love entails profound dependency on another person whom we cannot control, a condition of helplessness that is potentially humiliating and infuriating” (54).

Shunsuke is a misogynist. The perceived love he had at first for the women who wronged him could be nothing more than lust. It is also possible that love can wane overtime and be replaced by bitterness, apathy and fear. His three failed marriages and the subsequent failed relationships were enough to transform him into a state of decadence and denial. Lust easily turned into bitterness and affected his every being in relating with women on every sphere. The very reason that he was unable to control these women in his lust for them drove him to the realization that since he couldn’t control them intrinsically then an external level of control exact the same level of revenge.

His resentment towards women in general would catapult him into controlling other objects of his love. His use of money and power in seducing young and beautiful Yuichi into marrying Yasuko eventually led Shunsuke into experiencing love for the first time within the context of controlling and loving at the same time. His love for Yuichi was really more than sexual sentiments that underline such relationships. “Whenever he thought of Yuichi alone, the old mans heart palpitated somewhat, although without sexual overtones" (138)  Yuichi demonstrates an agent that uses beauty and pleasure to control others and allowing them to believe that he is really in love with them.

From the outset he knew that he was a homosexual but his marriage to Yasuko allowed him to be the