Binaries Of Love Essay

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Binaries of Love
The Lais of Marie de France is a compilation of short stories that delineate situations where love is just. Love is presented as a complex emotion and is portrayed as positive, while at other times, it is portrayed as negative. The author varies on whether or not love is favorable as is expressed by the outcomes of the characters in the story, such as lovers dying or being banished from the city. To demonstrate, the author weaves stories that exhibit binaries of love. Two distinct types of love are described: selfish and selfless. Love is selfish when a person leaves their current partner for another due to covetous reasons. Contrarily, selfless love occurs when a lover leaves to be in a superior relationship. The stark contrast between the types of love can be analyzed to derive a universal truth about love.
The story Guigemar demonstrates selfless love and illustrates how this love can be justified even it is adulterous. Guigemar, a king from Brittany, travels on a boat to a new kingdom, meets a lovely woman when he arrives, and begins to fall in love with her: “Love struck him to the quick;/ great strife was in his heart” (379-380). …show more content…

This type of love is shunned because it was selfish to abandon her husband and find a new man that she did not admire. As a result of her selfishness, Bisclavret’s wife suffered in the end: “He banished the wife,/ and chased her out of the country” (305-306). The culmination of their love exhibits another facet of love; one should be devoted to their lover. Bisclavret never changed from the honorable person he was when he transfigured into a werewolf. The loss of devotion to her husband ultimately caused the woman to leave, which the author showcases as harmful. While the author postulates that one should be devoted to their lover, there is a limit to that

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