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Laura Rumgay
Main Essay
Laura Rumgay
Main Essay
Title :Describe how love acts as a destructive force in Othello and Enduring Love, and The Yellow Wallpaper.
Introduction: Word Count: 186
This essay asks and answers the complex question ‘Which depiction of love as a destructive force is most powerful?” By comparing and contrasting several texts in addition to referencing others with similar themes, we are able to explore the theme of love and address the subject in question.
By definition, love simply means ‘a strong feeling of affection’. However, the spectrum of love is no simple thing. Love can be delicate, warm, soft and tender and light as a rising sun for one moment. The next dark, fiery and perilous, with blends of jealousy and rage. This contrast is where we see love acting as a destructive force in the texts we will consider.
Within this exploration of love acting as a negative power, we will also consider the relationship between psychology and the manner in which love manifests itself in individuals.
At the end of this essay I would have concluded that the most powerful depiction of love acting as a destructive force is featured in Enduring Love and the correlation between psychology and love manifesting itself in destructive ways despite being motivated by good.
Main body of essay: Word count : 3,241
In the featured texts, there are multiple ways in which love acts as a destructive force. Destructive love itself is an active process of destroying the affection and tenderness between two people. The differing forms of destructive love that come from this generalized definition can often be seen to combine with other destructive forces, creating intense relationships and series of events. With all of the three texts studied, destructive forces are powerful enough to have significant impact on characters, plot and relationships.
One of the main aspects of love acting as a destructive force is the manifestation of obsessive love. The dictionary defines this as a ‘hypothetical state in which one person feels an overwhelming desire to possess another person towards whom they feel a strong attraction, with an inability to accept fear or rejection’. Perhaps, the audience can find the most vivid and intense depiction of this ‘obsessive’ love out of all the texts in ‘Enduring Love’ by Ian McEwan[footnoteRef:1]. In Enduring Love, readers follow the complex relationship between Joe Rose and Jed Parry. The obsessive love is manifested in Parry after a chance encounter with Joe, leading him to pursue a romantic relationship with him, despite his adamant refusal and repeated attempts to convey these refusals to Jed. This is reiterated by Peter Childs[footnoteRef:2] when he writes “love can be obsessive and intimidating as it can be supportive and redeeming”. Love is a dichotomy between nurture and destruction. This plot is particularly unique as the audience discovers midway through the story that Parry has De Clérambault‘s Syndrome[footnoteRef...
