The Love Story

The Love Story

Some of the elements in the love story have changed over time. In the ancient world and during the Middle Ages, love stories did not have happy endings, and they focused on love outside of social and economic status. This was an innovation at that time, because most marriages were arranged and the partners were of the same social class. Beginning in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, love stories began to have happy endings, because marriage was coming to be rooted in feelings of truelove and couples came together by personal choice.

Modern love stories are influenced by Hollywood, and often feature pre-marital and extra-marital sexual relationships, and single parents with children. Over the years, a conventional format was followed. As entertainment and moral values changed, however, the distinction between convention and innovation became blurred.

The conventional love story formula has several elements:

The couple wants to be together. Often it is love at first sight.

There’s an obstacle for the couple to overcome. Those obstacles are usually:

lack of communication

noble or innocent actions are wrongly perceived

other people come between the lovers

At the beginning, the couple is neither rich nor poor.

There is superficial glamour surrounding the main characters.

Fate is used to justify unlikely coincidences.

Some outside force brings the couple together.

The story has a happy ending (Jensen 75-96)

There’s always some convention and some innovation in any given love story; for example, the movieSleepless in Seattle features both. The conventions in Sleepless include superficial glamour. Both Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are very attractive. Theirs is a love at first sight. The innocent action wrongly perceived comes about when Meg Ryan sees Tom Hanks hugging his sister. They are neither nor poor, and fate has Tom Hanks at the airport when Meg Ryan arrives. Of course, the couple meets at the top of the Sears Tower, and, presumably, lives happily together.

The innovation is Sleepless is the way the couple gets together. They have never met each other. They are brought together by Tom Hanks’ young son, who calls a radio show for lonely hearts.

Of course, all love stories don’t end as happily as Sleepless in Seattle. William Shakespeare’s tragic love story Romeo and Juliet was updated and made into a movie staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Clair Danes. Romeo and Juliet is conventional in some respects: the good looks of the leading actors, they fall in love at first sight, and the obstacle they must overcome is the longstanding feud between their families.