In Joseph Campbell’s film titled “Love and the Goddess” it was stated that, "Love, you might say, is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love. And the stronger the love, the more that pain, but love bears all things. Love itself is a pain, you might say, but is the pain of being truly alive." I believe that this statement holds validity in many situations. When someone values another so highly, the individual is making his or herself vulnerable to pain and heartache. With love comes pain, whether it is intentional or unintentional. Loving someone can be considered a risk because if anything happens to that beloved person, devastation is imminent. For instance, in the myth Demeter and Persephone, Demeter’s source of joy is solely Persephone. It can be implied that Persephone is also Demeter’s weakness because when Hades retrieves Persephone, Demeter becomes devastated and abandons her harvest. Due to the vast love Demeter had for her daughter, the thought of never seeing her again inflicted great pain. …show more content…
The amount of sacrifice simply does not matter when a loved one is at stake. Love will endure all things, pain included. Again, the myth Demeter and Persephone is an excellent example, as Demeter abandons her harvest she sacrifices the lives of mankind. Drought and devastation haunt her people; however, because of Demeter’s great love for Persephone, she is willing to sacrifice mortals for the presence of her
“What we value can be determined only by what we sacrifice”. This quote has been relayed often from person to person, and not to mention it can be a great factor into some literature. As a matter of fact, the book The Poisonwood Bible is a remarkable example of this quote in literature. After all, many sacrifices by the characters were made, not to mention lack of thereof.
Many people say that sacrifice is just a part of life. To some extent, this can be true. In
“The greatest thing in life is love, and be loved in return” (Eden Ahbez). “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (Cor 13:7). Love also influences all things. It is a powerful force that drives people to do things they would normally not do. In the news, there are several instances of murder in the name of love or robbing a bank because a person needs money for the person they love. There are also everyday instances of moving cross country for the person you love, leaving the person you love just to see them happy, or choosing another career path just to be with your significant other. In the literary works The Epic of Gilgamesh and Medea. Gilgamesh and Medea prove
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage” (Lao Tzu). In the myths Nanabush Creates the World, Orpheus and Eurydice and Savitri and Satyavan, they all have someone that they love. Their loved ones may be their weakness, however, the bravery they have comes from their loved ones. There are different kinds of loves exist whether it is in the past or in the present. Loves are everywhere, it is just how you see it. For example, love in a family can make one’s family strong and reliable and love between wife and husband can make create trust and responsibility. No matter what they must go through, they always willing to save each other.
Within The Torah are many different stories that support this theme, one of the most well-known being the story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son. God said to Abraham, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you” (The Torah 54). This was a huge sacrifice God was asking Abraham to make; he was asking for the life of his child, whom he treasured immensely. One might think that such a request would warrant careful
Love is one of the most influential entities on Earth. Love convinces people to perform many tasks they otherwise would not have even considered performing. Some people yearn for love so deeply that love can turn people into inhumane, bitter, creatures with no mercy or compassion toward others. Other people may think that the feeling of love will last for a while and then dissipate over the time the couple spends together until the relationship becomes dull and unhealthy. These toxic relationships can be found everywhere and can greatly lower the quality of one’s life; by introducing poor decisions and hatred into their life.
While most people see love as a positive, beneficial experience, through their interactions, these characters have learned to see love as a way to reflect each other’s weaknesses.
It is acceptable for someone to sacrifice oneself for the sake of another. A sacrifice is when someone gives something that is important to them in order to help another. First, “The Highwayman” is a good example of why sacrifice is acceptable. In this story, Bess sacrificed her life in order to warn the highwayman, because soldiers held her captive and were planning to kill him. This is acceptable because the king’s men were probably going to kill her anyway, and doing this she saved the highwayman. If he were to die she probably thought that there would be no reason to live anyway. The next piece of text that supports sacrifices is “The Third Wish.” In this story, Leita sacrificed her freedom to stay loyal to Mr.Peters. This is a good sacrifice
The best example of a love which is worth dying for is the love a mother has for her child. Haimon death had caused great anguish to his mother. She could not bear the loss of her son. The man who told of Haimon death also tells of the queen’s death. “ She stood before the altar, and her heart Welcomed the knife her own hand guided, And a great cry burst from her lips for Megreus dead, And for Haimon dead, her sons” (Sopholes, A-57). She had lost both of her sons and couldn’t bear to live without the ones she brought into the
Love demands suffering and the acceptance of it so that one can: “redeem [them]self by it.”(420) Through being redeemed, one can see the value of love. Suffering displays the value of love because once one accepts suffering, and bears that burden, they understand the value of love. They now understand the value of love because they realize the weight of their suffering, and for the other person to embrace it for another. Through the acceptance of suffering hope and new life can be found. New life is achieved through the acceptance of suffering because being in a circumstance in which you would suffer is not enough. One has to experience that suffering to truly repent and be redeemed. When one does not truly experience suffering, they have not earned new life. This seems to be a paradox, how can one suffer and gain new life? New life is hope, while suffering is misery and despair. Through experiencing the suffering that one deserves, one wants to repent so that the misery is no longer there. Consequently, Love is valuable to the soul, in that love elevates
Most people see love as an intense feeling of great affection, but in reality, it can cause greater harm to a person than good. This is certainly true in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The story follows two star-crossed lovers, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, that are from rival families. Due to the conflict between the families, the lovers find themselves with dark thoughts of death and suicide to be with the other as a result of impulsive love. In the play, Shakespeare paints the dark idea that love, when based on impulse and naivety, might seems like something that could bring joy, but it actually ruins one’s life.
This quote is what I’ve held in my memory for as long as I can remember and have made me truly understand the concept of love. Love can either be the greatest gift one can receive, or it can be heart breaking when it doesn’t correspond to
Love is one of the strongest emotions. It can create and destroy events in one’s life. It can also change an individual for the better or worse. Due to its power, its effects seem to be everlasting, and can help change an individual’s psychological and social elements.
In a less fantastical and dramatic sense, I agree with Aristophanes that love is a form of reconnection with another. Love, simply stated, is seeing a reflection of your own existence within someone else. I realize that that may sound somewhat inconstruable, but if compassion is a very basic and universal form of love, which I believe it is, then it is clear that we get love through finding some sort of commonality with each other. Of course, by this very definition, I do not agree with Aristophanes that love is found with only one individual that we have been literally separated from- I believe love can be found in any one. If we have the capacity to feel pain for another person, even another animal, then we must also have the ability to feel love for all. As pain is a form of suffering,
Love immediately evokes mental images of lovers pledging their undying love to one another, or a mother cradling their child. These images are indeed loved, however when people attach the word “unconditional” to love, it becomes a prevalent falsehood in both literature and man’s history. Oedipus by Sophocles, where a man’s incest and murder filled origins lead to his demise, and Medea, whose title character decimates all who have wronged her, by Euripides are prime examples of how there are some conditions, caused by ego, selfishness, and competition, that love just cannot survive. Although some would argue that people can love without stipulations, it is clear that no one is capable of unconditional love because to love someone is an action and people’s actions are dictated by self-service.