Absence of True Love in Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and Boyle's Astronomer's Wife

Absence of True Love in Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and Boyle's Astronomer's Wife

Most people in today's society have been in love or will be in love sometime in their life. I am not talking about little crushes that we call love; I am talking about that love that makes us tingle when we think about it, true love. Most people are looking for their true love, but what they are basing this love on is their idea of the ideal love. Ideal love is what we think love should be or what it should feel like. My idea of ideal love is when you want to be with the same person everyday and never get tired of them. Every time you see each other you get that same warm, tingly feeling you got the first time you saw each other. Although everyone has their own idea what the ideal love should be, they are all basing it on the idea of true love. For example, the saying "Love Conquers All" simply states that if you have love in your life you can make it through anything. The stories "Astronomer's Wife," by Kay Boyle, and "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, both show that without love in a marriage there is a lifetime of heartache and pain.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" and the "Astronomer's Wife" both portray the idea that over time lust and love that is not true love fades. Both of these stories are based on marriages where love is nonexistent. There may have been some form of love or affection in the beginning, but it was not true love. Neither of the marriages in these stories have the warmth and comfort that is usually associated in marriage. In "The Yellow Wallpaper" the marriage is more like a doctor-patient relationship rather than a husband-wife relationship. The marriage in the "Astronomer's Wife" is more l...

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...rue love, the one that makes you tingle, will never work. The two marriages in these stories did not have true love, they may have been in love at the time but it was not lasting love that is why they ended in heartache and pain. When one is looking for true love or they think they might have found it, remember that their true love is based on their idea of the ideal love. Also, if things get rough in the relationship, or life in general, remember the saying "Love Conquers All".

Works Cited

Boyle, Kay. "Astronomer's Wife." Responding to Literature: Stories, Poems, Plays, and Essays. Fourth Edition. Ed. Judith A. Stanford. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 619-623.

Gillman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Responding to Literature: Stories, Poems Plays, and Essays. Fourth Edition. Ed. Judith A. Stanford. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 604-616.