A Comparison of Love in Beloved and Secrets and Lies

2599 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The essay of love

The Absence of Love in Beloved and Secrets and Lies

Love is arguably the most powerful emotion possessed by mankind; it is the impalpable bond that allows individuals to connect and understand one another. Pure love is directly related to divinity. Without love, happiness and prosperity become unreachable goals. An individual that possesses all the desired superficial objects in the world stands alone without the presence of love. For centuries love has been marveled by all that dare encounter it. Countless books and poems have been transcribed to explain the phenomenon of love, but love surpasses all intellectual explanations and discussions. Love is not a definition, but rather a thought, an idea. This idea, the idea of love, burns inside us all. Instinctually, every soul on Earth is addicted to love. An addiction, that unless satisfied will contribute to the downfall of an individual in a society. If one does not, or is not loved, one can not prosper among a society where love is an essential ingredient to joy and happiness. Love produces healthy relationships that in return produce healthy and secure environments for all its participants. Love allows the connection of two people; it is love that completes an individual.

In Toni Morrisons Beloved, and the motion picture Secrets and Lies, incomplete characters are illustrated and analyzed. The incompleteness of these characters is a result of the absence of love. In the text of Beloved and Secrets and Lies, Sethe and Cynthia are characters whose roles portray the rueful outcome of an individual that is incapable of possessing love in its purist form. Sethe or Cynthia can not correctly express love because neither of them were loved as children. Only ...

... middle of paper ...

...duce her own brother. Cynthia is self-evidently terribly affected by the paucity of love in her life. Morris later explains his sister as a victim of someone “who didn’t receive any love.” (Secrets and Lies)

Love is the controlling factor in the lives of every individual, and as portrayed in the novel Beloved and the film Secrets and Lies love is not always pleasant. Characters from both texts find themselves incapable of expressing love, and therefore destroy several potential healthy relationships. Overall love can be considered divine just as easily as it can be considered evil. Sometimes the idea of love is lost somewhere, and those who can not manage to find an alternative source of emotion, must endure the pain and suffering of a loveless life.

Bibliography

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.

“Secrets and Lies”

Show More
Related

  • Omi And Winant And Bonilla-Silva's Approach In Understanding The Distinction Between Ethnicity And Race Case Study

    746 Words  | 2 Pages

    First, I will examine Omi and Winant’s approach. They made a clear distinction between ethnicity and race and only discussed how races are formed. They also define race as a constantly being transformed by political struggle and it is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by

    Read More

  • Quest For Love in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In the Rye

    2367 Words  | 5 Pages

    love in the context of being a device that is used to protect and to care for people

    Read More

  • Egyptian And Chinese Poem Analysis

    956 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love and affection is an indispensable part of human life. In different culture love may appear differently. In the poem “My god my lotus” lovers responded to each other differently than in the poem “Fishhawk”. Likewise, the presentation of female sexuality, gender disparity and presentation of love were shown inversely in these two poems. Some may argue that love in the past was not as same as love in present. However, we can still find some lovers who are staying with their partners just to maintain the relationship. We may also find some lovers having relationship only because of self-interest. However, a love relationship should always be out of self-interest and must be based on mutual interest. A love usually obtains its perfectness when it develops from both partners equally and with same affection.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Beloved And One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1913 Words  | 4 Pages

    Theme of Love in Beloved and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest       In the book, Beloved, by Toni Morrison and the movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, featuring Jack Nickolson, both share a common theme of love and loving oneself. Morrison’s character, Baby Suggs, is the source of love for her people. Similarly, Jack Nicholson’s character McMurphy tries to give the men confidence, so that they can love themselves.

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison's Beloved

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    If ignorance is bliss, then why is it human nature to uncover the truth? In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the character Denver uses knowledge to feed her craving in hopes that it will fill the void her mother unsuccessfully tried to satisfy with the blood of the past and too little milk. To understand these truths one must accept that Beloved is a physical representation of the past, Sethe embodies the present, and Denver exemplifies the future. Throughout the novel these three characters interact on a superficial level, but each action has a deeper underlying influence on the other. This is why Denver’s assumed motive of using the attachment she forged with Beloved to develop a closer relationship with Sethe is cursory. When in fact it was for fear of her own life, that Denver’s intended to extract the information from Beloved, of what triggered Sethe to kill killed her.

    Read More

  • Race Tensions

    1443 Words  | 3 Pages

    The town I grew up in is Show Low, Arizona. Surrounding Show Low are many small neighboring towns. These towns all come together to form the White Mountains. Most of the citizens of my community are of a Caucasian background. There are also some different minority groups that come from different background that also live there. The majority of the non-Caucasian residents are of Native Americans decent and Mexican decent. There are Native Americans because of the Apache Reservation that lies to the East, and the Mexicans have immigrated because of the vast amount of construction jobs. The mixture of these different groups has caused many different problems with in the community of the White Mountains. There lies within the community old roots of prejudice and discrimination towards people of different cultures. Not only does prejudice still run high, but has also been a hindrance to the progress of the community, which has not just affected the progress of the community, but most likely the traditions will be passed down of prejudice and discrimination to the children of Show Low and the rest of the White Mountains.

    Read More

  • The Changing Era of Race Relations

    804 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... by the development of cities as urban centers eventually overshadow and potentially erase the race problem. Although this thought process is one of great popularity, the changes due to this failed perspective have provided a pathway for the revamping of sociological thinking produced out of the rebellion and confidence of black people. This outcome is evidenced by some of the outcomes of a civil rights movement led by blacks to include: the slow but eventual establishment of a black middle class, the realization of confidence and dignity by blacks that has grown out of such a movement, and the new found investment in a black culture with continual watering down of one dominant race via immigration and economic advancement.

    Read More

  • Beloved - Toni Morrison

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    But as soon as Sethe understands who Beloved is, Beloved's claim on her is total. Sethe no longer goes to work; she attends to Beloved's wishes. Denver - who once was the most important person in Sethe’s life - tries to make claims on both Beloved as a sister and Sethe as a mother, but she is gradually shut out of the relationship. Sethe doesn’t want to tell much about her past to Denver, but to Beloved she tells nearly everything. “It became…incomplete reveries.” (p. 58)

    Read More

  • Race and Ethnicity

    2033 Words  | 5 Pages

    In Globalization The Essentials, Ritzer says that all racial and ethnic statuses are products of social definitions based on seemingly objective traits (Ritzer.p264). Markus and Moya make a similar proposition, that race and ethnicity are not things that people have or are, rather they are actions that people do. they go on to say that race and ethnicity are social, historical, and philosophical processes that have been "done" for years. This idea is interesting in suggesting that people who claim a race or ethnicity are "doing race and ethnicity to themselves. It also suggests that people who use these categories to indentify groups, or as a basis of discrimination, are "doing" race and ethnicity to others. Stereotypes and other notions based on race and ethnicity are simply more ways people do this to eachother (Markus.et.al.p140) While there have been many previous "scientific studies" that "prove" the differences between races (such as the questionable study of measuring skull sizes to determine the IQ of a race), We now know that these studies were not accurate and were simply means by which to justify racism. Current studies have proven that there are actually no biological markers that are unique to one race or ethnicity(Markus.et.al.p144.). Unfortunately, as Ritzer cites, if men define a situation as real, the consequences of these situations become real.(Ritzer.p265) We can see today, that the consequences of the imagined race and ethnicity have become very real.

    Read More

  • Those Who By Insight Know What Love Is

    1488 Words  | 3 Pages

    As any romantic will assert, love is by far the most powerful force known to human hearts and minds. This sentiment is espoused throughout history, almost to the point of cliché. Everyone has heard the optimistic statement, “love conquers all,” and The Beatles are certain, however idyllic it may be, that “all you need is love.” Humanity is convinced that love is unique within human emotion, unequalled in its power to both lift the spirit up in throws of ecstasy, and cast it down in utter despair.

    Read More

  • Love in Toni Morrison's "Beloved"

    648 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love is said to be one of the most desired things in life. People long for it, search for it, and crave it. It can come in the form of partners, friends, or just simply family. To some, love is something of a necessity in life, where some would rather turn a cold shoulder to it. Love can be the mixture of passion, need, lust, loyalty, and blood. Love can be extraordinary and breathtaking. Love being held so high can also be dangerous. Love can drive people to numerous mad things with it dangerously so full of craze and passion.

    Read More

  • Social Problems Perpetuated

    1141 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout United States history, power of the upper class has been maintained by assigning “different” people a lower, less desirable, place in society, predisposing them to social inequalities. Social stratification creates a system of social classes in which people born into a specific class have different “life chances” (Macionis 28). These classes are somewhat maintained by the fact that people tend to “take care of their own,” meaning that members of the upper class generally favor other members of the upper class and offer opportunities for advancement in society to those they feel most similar to (Doran). People from lower socioeconomic classes generally experience less life opportunity, have increased poverty and therefore have increased health issues, increased crime, decreased education, and decreased job opportunities (Macionis 38-39) These people are also often politically alienated, and therefore also lack the appropriate government influences to change their current status (Macionis 39).

    Read More

  • System Of Social Stratification

    1720 Words  | 4 Pages

    The most heinous scene of slavery was seen in North American slavery because it gradually grew by a racist ideology. The second system of social stratification is caste. In this system, people are born into unequal groups based on their parents' status and remain in these groups for the rest of their lives. In a caste system the accompanying rights and obligations are ascribed on the basis of birth into a particular group in the society. This system is often found in India, for instance the Sudra Caste. It’s unfortunate that no matter what an individual accomplishes in their life, because of them being born in a low status group, their status will never change. The third system of social stratification is known as class. This system is primarily based on material possessions where an individual is born into a social ranking but allows for social mobility, when an individual can move up or down from it unlike the systems of slavery and caste systems. A person's own effort, knowledge, and skills or lack of

    Read More

  • Describing Love

    629 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love is the basis of every day life, and it gives us the power to feel so affectionately

    Read More

  • Essay About Love: Speaking of Love

    433 Words  | 1 Pages

    What is love? Love is a very special and meaningful word to each human being. Each human being has his/her own thoughts about love to guide himself/herself to land safely and smoothly into the kingdom of Love. Without this preconceived idea of love, people would be acting like a blind person searching for the light with thousand of obstacles in front of him.

    Read More

More about A Comparison of Love in Beloved and Secrets and Lies

Open Document