Love is Tormenting

Torments of Love

In Memoriam: 27 by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” (phrase). Did I miss something? Why is it better? Love is tormenting. It drives people mad. I’m mad with love. Ted Hughes would call my love the “double vision”: this idea that the person is both your god/goddess and your tormentor. This idea is seen in the series Twilight between Bella and Edward, but there is also another aspect of love that is at play between those two lovers. Love is vast and that respect it will be the macrocosm and in the macrocosm is found the microcosm, the aspects of love. Two of these aspects I will be exploring are infatuation and jealousy.

According to psychology today, infatuation and jealousy are secondary emotions. Infatuation is a state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love. It expresses sexual or libidinal attraction of addictive love. This is usually accompanied with an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone (Pine). In Romeo and Juliet the lovers meet in Act 1 Scene 5. In the following lines, Romeo has just seen Juliet for the first time:

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

Two things have happened: first the starting of infatuation and the meeting of the soul. Jill Line writes in Shakespeare and the Fire of Love that the eyes are the window to the soul. This concept has been heard before and it plays off the notion that to see a person’s soul is to know that they are your soul mate. Romeo could not know that Juliet was his soul mate because he has never been in love. In the above mentioned lines Romeo is exhibiting the romanticized ideology of love. The superficial love of beauty, he does not know this girl but yet he has fallen madly in love with her. Juliet is tormented by two things one that she is in love with a Montague and second is her arranged marriage to Paris. The lovers secretly marry and plan to run off, but a miscommunication causes Romeo to act hastily and kill himself. Juliet awakes to find her lover dead and slays herself. It was an intense infatuation and tormenting path of love that ended the lovers’ lives.

As I stated in the opening paragraph this tormented idea of lovers is seen in Twilight between Bella and Edward. They have an intense love between each other. The torment of love between Bella and Edward is found in New Moon. Edward leaves Bella, and for months Bella withdraws from the people around her. Later in the novel Edward believes that Bella is dead and decides to commit suicide. This intense infatuation is also seen in the movie Fatal Attraction. In Fatal Attraction a married man, Michael Douglas, has an affair with a woman, Glen Close, who becomes infatuated or obsessed with him (Abraham). Glen Close’s character becomes unstable. She begins stalking him, boils his child’s bunny, and tries to kill his wife. These mentioned signs relate to jealousy.

Jealousy refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection (Pines). It is seen in Fatal Attraction the outcome of infatuation turned to jealousy. In Othello, Othello and Desdemona have been married and seem to be happy; however, Othello becomes insecure because he believes that Desdemona’s has been unfaithful. In the lines below Iago instructs Othello to hide:

Stand you awhile apart;
Confine yourself but in a patient list.
Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief--
A passion most unsuiting such a man--
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,
And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy,
Bade him anon return and here speak with me;
The which he promised. Do but encave yourself,
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
That dwell in every region of his face;
For I will make him tell the tale anew,
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
He hath, and is again to cope your wife:
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience;
Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,
And nothing of a man.

Othello does and from hearing the conversation between Cassio and Iago he believes fully that his wife has been unfaithful. He kills Desdemona and finds that he was wrong and slays himself. It is the overwhelming emotion of jealousy that leads to Othello’s downfall and Glen Close’s infatuated love to turn sour.

As I stated before infatuation and jealousy is enough to drive any sane person mad. In Romeo and Juliet infatuation united the lovers and ultimately ended their love affair. Othello doth’d the green-eyed monster and killed Desdemona and himself. Love is tormenting. My love is tormenting, but even me being in love does not help me understand it. I still do not know what love is, perhaps this below passage says it best (Corinthains).

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I would have liked to add more but was recommended not too. I wanted to talk more about Jill Line's research on Christianity-platonic questions and the four and connect that to the main body of my paper, infatuation and jealousy, and the brain science connected with those emotions. Perhaps I will work more on it in the future.