The Singularly Quaint Emotion that is Love
Like the changing of seasons, the ebb and flow of tides, the shedding of leaves and the sprouts rising from little seeds, love as an emotion is turbulent and ever-changing. Most of the romances that dominate world literature and media speak of Love and its lethal impact on the hearts and minds of characters. Usually in those stories, love conquers all or destroys all; there’s no in between. Love is also famously documented as dimming down the IQ of most characters (like Romeo from Romeo and Juliet famously swallowing poison and not checking properly if Juliet was even dead, that fool!)
But love can be very eccentric. Though we like to pretend otherwise and define it within the bounds of what society at large considers "proper". Then the definition of "proper" changes with passing ages. That is why, we have decided to dedicate this post to the depiction of romantic love through the ages and pages of literature, history and mythology to examine whether the perception of these depictions have changed with time or if love is truly eternal.
Note: We are posting this in September because-
1. We were being lazy.
2. It's hard for three single souls to work on this theme in February. That’s why only two persons have successfully finished their contemplation enough to be presented here.
3. With all of our widest hopes and desires, we couldn’t finish this rather ambitious project dedicated on the occasion of Valentine's day. Well, better late than never, eh?
Without further ado, enjoy!
PS: The last two points of the above note is the sole contribution of the soul who was rather unfortunate in their contemplation.
Ancestry of Wattpadian Stories
When we think about the most popular ancient Greek (or Roman) mythological couples, Eros/Cupid and Psyche/Anima definitely feature in the list of pairs that come to our mind. And if we go the Webtoon way, then this pair comes to mind whenever we think of the webtoon "Your Throne" (I Want To Be You, Just For A Day). Though I wouldn't necessarily think of them as a romantic pair in Your Throne.🙂
[Quick note before we proceed: Eros and Psyche are the Greek names while Cupid and Anima are the Roman names. Similarly, Aphrodite is the Greek name while Venus is the Roman one. From here onward, I will be using their Greek names but the story has been written by an Ancient Roman writer, Apuleius and based on the Roman aspects of the gods and goddesses. So, I'm essentially talking about an ancient Roman story while mentioning the Greek names of the characters. With that out of the way, let's start doing what humankind does best: criticise.]
The Greek couple, unlike the one in Your Throne, is a proper romantic couple. It even has a happy ending!! Plus, a Wattpad-like love story and proper saas-bahu scenes. What's not to like! Indian TV Serial directors be drawing inspiration from Ancient Roman prose writers. Even Snow White, Beauty and the Beast took inspiration from Apuleius' work. And this is why it's pretty easy to point out the massively problematic themes in this HEA ancient Roman story (that have characters with Greek origins🤷🏻♀️).
1. Eros falls for Psyche after he accidentally gets hit by his own arrow...🙂🙂 It gets even better when one realises that he was originally going to use that arrow on Psyche so that she falls for something hideous. Under his mother's order.🙃
2. Once Psyche's family came to know about the terrible Oracle regarding her marriage, their response was to leave her on a rocky crag, dressed in funeral attire. Amazing family bond there. 🥰
3. Psyche's wedding night with Eros where they did the matrimonial polka occurred without her seeing his face or knowing his true identity. And this continues till her sisters come to visit her.
4. Psyche was ready to kill her husband, who had yet to do any harm to her. Neither does she have any evidence that he has harmed others. Yet just her sisters' words were enough to provoke her to go kill him if his outer appearance was monstrous. When she saw his face, she was then suddenly in love with him. But Eros was hurt by then. Please make the entire thing make sense in a healthy way. 🙏🏻
5. By the way, she was pregnant when she confronted and injured Eros. And she was still carrying the child when Aphrodite orders her handmaidens to torture Psyche.
6. Also Aphrodite and her handmaidens ridiculing Psyche about conceiving a child out of a sham of marriage is rich.
7. I won't even bother with the tasks themselves. Tasks in myths of all kinds usually don't make much sense. But I do wonder about Hedone-the baby that's yet to be born. To be dragged into the underworld even before being born just because your grandmother is a vicious b- Okay, let's not go into rant mode about a goddess.
8. Zeus accepts their marriage and grants immortality to Psyche and solemnly states that this union would redeem Eros from his history of provoking adultery. This approval comes when Eros promises to help Zeus cheat when a good looking maiden catches Zeus's eye. 👁👄👁
Fun Facts:
That Oracle which caused Psyche to be abandoned by her family was in reality b*llsh*t.😇
The internal misogyny that was shown by a FREAKING GODDESS is just astounding. I know that my modern perspective is clouding my judgement and the writer was a man in the ancient times but holy f*ck it is f*cking hard to digest Aphrodite's sexist remarks to Psyche about her own grandchild. This is when Eros is not her son with Hephaestus. In fact, she has zero children with Hephaestus. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Anyway, I won't go into super details. That would make this article into a boring rant. And I'm sure there is symbolism and stuff associated with the story. Or, modern civilisation managed to add symbolism to the story. But to think that such a popular and happy mythological couple has such a problematic backstory...it's hard to judge Wattpad and its ilk after this.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHANGE
[Quick note before we proceed: Eros and Psyche are the Greek names while Cupid and Anima are the Roman names. Similarly, Aphrodite is the Greek name while Venus is the Roman one. From here onward, I will be using their Greek names but the story has been written by an Ancient Roman writer, Apuleius and based on the Roman aspects of the gods and goddesses. So, I'm essentially talking about an ancient Roman story while mentioning the Greek names of the characters. With that out of the way, let's start doing what humankind does best: criticise.]
The Greek couple, unlike the one in Your Throne, is a proper romantic couple. It even has a happy ending!! Plus, a Wattpad-like love story and proper saas-bahu scenes. What's not to like! Indian TV Serial directors be drawing inspiration from Ancient Roman prose writers. Even Snow White, Beauty and the Beast took inspiration from Apuleius' work. And this is why it's pretty easy to point out the massively problematic themes in this HEA ancient Roman story (that have characters with Greek origins🤷🏻♀️).
1. Eros falls for Psyche after he accidentally gets hit by his own arrow...🙂🙂 It gets even better when one realises that he was originally going to use that arrow on Psyche so that she falls for something hideous. Under his mother's order.🙃
2. Once Psyche's family came to know about the terrible Oracle regarding her marriage, their response was to leave her on a rocky crag, dressed in funeral attire. Amazing family bond there. 🥰
3. Psyche's wedding night with Eros where they did the matrimonial polka occurred without her seeing his face or knowing his true identity. And this continues till her sisters come to visit her.
4. Psyche was ready to kill her husband, who had yet to do any harm to her. Neither does she have any evidence that he has harmed others. Yet just her sisters' words were enough to provoke her to go kill him if his outer appearance was monstrous. When she saw his face, she was then suddenly in love with him. But Eros was hurt by then. Please make the entire thing make sense in a healthy way. 🙏🏻
5. By the way, she was pregnant when she confronted and injured Eros. And she was still carrying the child when Aphrodite orders her handmaidens to torture Psyche.
6. Also Aphrodite and her handmaidens ridiculing Psyche about conceiving a child out of a sham of marriage is rich.
7. I won't even bother with the tasks themselves. Tasks in myths of all kinds usually don't make much sense. But I do wonder about Hedone-the baby that's yet to be born. To be dragged into the underworld even before being born just because your grandmother is a vicious b- Okay, let's not go into rant mode about a goddess.
8. Zeus accepts their marriage and grants immortality to Psyche and solemnly states that this union would redeem Eros from his history of provoking adultery. This approval comes when Eros promises to help Zeus cheat when a good looking maiden catches Zeus's eye. 👁👄👁
Fun Facts:
That Oracle which caused Psyche to be abandoned by her family was in reality b*llsh*t.😇
The internal misogyny that was shown by a FREAKING GODDESS is just astounding. I know that my modern perspective is clouding my judgement and the writer was a man in the ancient times but holy f*ck it is f*cking hard to digest Aphrodite's sexist remarks to Psyche about her own grandchild. This is when Eros is not her son with Hephaestus. In fact, she has zero children with Hephaestus. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Anyway, I won't go into super details. That would make this article into a boring rant. And I'm sure there is symbolism and stuff associated with the story. Or, modern civilisation managed to add symbolism to the story. But to think that such a popular and happy mythological couple has such a problematic backstory...it's hard to judge Wattpad and its ilk after this.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHANGE
In the wake of a terrible war situation caused by a bald man in Russia
waking up one day and choosing violence, musing about love seems contradictory and yet oddly fitting. Our childhood stories led us to believe that love only exists in fairytales and they always have a guaranteed happy ending. But like the Rose which has thorns in her stem, love sprouts intensely in the most hostile of environments. The greatest works in World Literature have depicted the blossoming of romance in a setting that seeks to destroy anything remotely happy. Usually love conquers all, but there are times when the world seeks to consume love. Banking on my vague memories of an English degree, let's cast a modern lens on two prominent works of the 20th Century.
Ghôre Baire (ঘরে বাইরে) - This 1916 novel known in english as The Home And The World features a love triangle that is formed and moulded by the political unrest in pre-independent India. Bimala, the female protagonist and narrator forms the centre of this triangle. Her husband Nikhil and his friend Sandip complete this complex equation. At the beginning of the novel, Bimala's 'world' constituted her husband and her home. Their marriage is viewed as sacred and there is mutual respect and adoration between them. This matrimonial bliss is threatened when Bimala becomes enamoured by the speeches of the enigmatic Sandip, leader of the resistance movement. You could say Bimala was sapiosexual.
Sandip himself is a self-centred man who takes advantage of her affections and influences her to steal from her husband which leaves her in a guilty mess. Nikhil notices his wife's attraction to Sandip but does nothing, willing to let her make her own choices. The contrasting views on nationalism, as represented through Nikhil and Sandip, plays havoc with the relationship between these characters. Eventually the novel ends on a tragic note with Nikhil paying the price for his ideals and Bimala left devastated and torn. The clashing ideas of nationalism, the position of women in society, the institution of marriage and so on are viewed through the fractured lens of love. This triangle of love and heartbreak is impacted largely by the changes of the ‘home’ and the ‘world.
(Let’s take a moment to gush about the fineness of Soumitra Chatterjee as the magnetic Sandip and Victor Banerjee as the gentle Nikhil and Swatilekha Chatterjee as the doe-eyed Bimala in the movie version. *heart eyes*)
A Farewell To Arms - Coming to the cliche ' love in the time of war ', there is no better example than the saga of desperate love between Frederick Henry And Catherine Barkley in this 1929 novel by Ernest Hemingway. Set during the First World War, the tale of a love struggling to survive among the violent dance of death and destruction is moving and timeless. Frederick stars as the classic "Hemingway Hero'', an American lieutenant serving as a driver for an ambulance in the Italian Army. Frederic meets Catherine, an English nurse, for the first time through his friend Rinaldi. Attraction immediately sparks between them, though Frederic is quite casual about it while Catherine harbours intense affections. Frederic gets injured in war and is brought to Milan where Catherine nurses him to health and after spending some intimate moments (like Super steamy) Frederic finds himself deeply in love with her. Frederic is eventually called back to war. Catherine informs him of her pregnancy and he tells her to take care of herself and the unborn child till then. He eventually escapes the war and follows Catherine to Switzerland, where they settle down in secrecy as Frederic is now a war deserter and wanted by the police. Readers would expect that after such trials and tribulations, the two lovebirds would get their happily ever after. But it was not to be so.
Love and loss permeate the plot like the inescapable dust. The Catherine we meet at the beginning has just lost her fiancé in war and so she is in a vulnerable state of mind. She seeks the emotional support she lost in Frederic. Frederic realised his love for her on their second meeting but the menacing presence of war tore them apart once again. When at last they are reunited and a promise of a new life lies on the horizon, Catherine gives birth to a stillborn baby and passes away. Thus, Frederic was torn from the arms of love by the arms of wars and he bids farewell to both at the end, thus justifying the wordplay of the title.
Yeah, I chose some pretty depressing love stories to write about. 🥲
Picture Sources:
sexy brain RM meme gif
Ghore baire film still image
A farewell to Arms meme
Gajab bejatti hai yaar meme
waking up one day and choosing violence, musing about love seems contradictory and yet oddly fitting. Our childhood stories led us to believe that love only exists in fairytales and they always have a guaranteed happy ending. But like the Rose which has thorns in her stem, love sprouts intensely in the most hostile of environments. The greatest works in World Literature have depicted the blossoming of romance in a setting that seeks to destroy anything remotely happy. Usually love conquers all, but there are times when the world seeks to consume love. Banking on my vague memories of an English degree, let's cast a modern lens on two prominent works of the 20th Century.
Ghôre Baire (ঘরে বাইরে) - This 1916 novel known in english as The Home And The World features a love triangle that is formed and moulded by the political unrest in pre-independent India. Bimala, the female protagonist and narrator forms the centre of this triangle. Her husband Nikhil and his friend Sandip complete this complex equation. At the beginning of the novel, Bimala's 'world' constituted her husband and her home. Their marriage is viewed as sacred and there is mutual respect and adoration between them. This matrimonial bliss is threatened when Bimala becomes enamoured by the speeches of the enigmatic Sandip, leader of the resistance movement. You could say Bimala was sapiosexual.
Sandip himself is a self-centred man who takes advantage of her affections and influences her to steal from her husband which leaves her in a guilty mess. Nikhil notices his wife's attraction to Sandip but does nothing, willing to let her make her own choices. The contrasting views on nationalism, as represented through Nikhil and Sandip, plays havoc with the relationship between these characters. Eventually the novel ends on a tragic note with Nikhil paying the price for his ideals and Bimala left devastated and torn. The clashing ideas of nationalism, the position of women in society, the institution of marriage and so on are viewed through the fractured lens of love. This triangle of love and heartbreak is impacted largely by the changes of the ‘home’ and the ‘world.
(Let’s take a moment to gush about the fineness of Soumitra Chatterjee as the magnetic Sandip and Victor Banerjee as the gentle Nikhil and Swatilekha Chatterjee as the doe-eyed Bimala in the movie version. *heart eyes*)
A Farewell To Arms - Coming to the cliche ' love in the time of war ', there is no better example than the saga of desperate love between Frederick Henry And Catherine Barkley in this 1929 novel by Ernest Hemingway. Set during the First World War, the tale of a love struggling to survive among the violent dance of death and destruction is moving and timeless. Frederick stars as the classic "Hemingway Hero'', an American lieutenant serving as a driver for an ambulance in the Italian Army. Frederic meets Catherine, an English nurse, for the first time through his friend Rinaldi. Attraction immediately sparks between them, though Frederic is quite casual about it while Catherine harbours intense affections. Frederic gets injured in war and is brought to Milan where Catherine nurses him to health and after spending some intimate moments (like Super steamy) Frederic finds himself deeply in love with her. Frederic is eventually called back to war. Catherine informs him of her pregnancy and he tells her to take care of herself and the unborn child till then. He eventually escapes the war and follows Catherine to Switzerland, where they settle down in secrecy as Frederic is now a war deserter and wanted by the police. Readers would expect that after such trials and tribulations, the two lovebirds would get their happily ever after. But it was not to be so.
Love and loss permeate the plot like the inescapable dust. The Catherine we meet at the beginning has just lost her fiancé in war and so she is in a vulnerable state of mind. She seeks the emotional support she lost in Frederic. Frederic realised his love for her on their second meeting but the menacing presence of war tore them apart once again. When at last they are reunited and a promise of a new life lies on the horizon, Catherine gives birth to a stillborn baby and passes away. Thus, Frederic was torn from the arms of love by the arms of wars and he bids farewell to both at the end, thus justifying the wordplay of the title.
Yeah, I chose some pretty depressing love stories to write about. 🥲
Picture Sources:
sexy brain RM meme gif
Ghore baire film still image
A farewell to Arms meme
Gajab bejatti hai yaar meme
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