Elliot Elliott: Captured By The Idea Of Love

In the short story, “Aurora” by Junot Diaz, the narrator, who stays nameless throughout the whole story lets us in on his complicated relationship with Aurora; Aurora is a seventeen year old girl who only six months ago was released from juvenile hall. Diaz does an absorbing job at revealing the real and raw truth of relationships. Through the two characters in the story, Diaz reveals the complex status that a relationship can sometimes have, such as being defined by polar traits, such as, love and hate.

Connie on the other hand is affected by the pop culture of her time. The pop culture works as Connie’s connection from the real world to her fantasy world. “Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was, not the way someone like June would suppose but sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs;”(Oates 211). Connie enjoys escaping her life by listening to music and daydreaming about boys. She gets her fantasies about romance mostly from songs on the radio. The happiness she finds with boys is mostly fixed on these romantic fantasies and not the boys themselves. When Arnold shows up at her house, she finds herself entranced by him. ““Bobby King?” she said. “I listen to him all the time. I think he’s great.””(Oates 212). Since she notices that Arnold is playing the same music she listens to she lowers her guard a little. She lowers her guard because the music he is listening to makes her think that he is around her age.

Later the narrator tells of how he follows her to school and how he thinks about her constantly, much like an adolescent in “love” would do.  This feeling is not foreign to any reader; during the youth of our lives, we too have desired someone at a point beyond normality.

People often lose who they are in a blink of an eye. Edith Wharton is a brilliant, natural writer whose personal life inspired her ability to write “Ethan Frome”. She introduces Frome, a man whose illusion and infatuation rose up to a peak of a mountain causing his undesirable relationship with his wife to crack, like a hot glass submerged into cold water. In particular, the infatuation Frome introduces in the book is considered to be part of an obsession. One often falls in love with the idea of love, which causes for most to get lost in a passionate cloud.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Where there is love, there is life”. Human beings cannot live a fulfilled life without love of some kind. In Junot Diaz’s Novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” we see that love plays a vital role. Love, or the lack of it, impacts each individual in the story and leads them to become reckless or grow stronger. Whether its love from a parent, from a friend, or a significant other, we need it to function, to grow, and to be able to accept ourselves.

I can see the way Aimee looks at me. I know what she wants, because I feel it too.

Beyond the societal expectation of man and what it means to be a man, Diaz explicitly critiques those expectations by exposing many of the negative impacts Oscar and his family consequently endured. The contextual inquiry that one must pick up is not only the vantage point of the writer, but his perceived lens of the oppressor. The antagonist of the text is deemed tyrannical and self-centered which display’s Diaz’s interpretation of the oppressor’s mindset and intent. Simultaneously, the vulnerability of Oscar in his search for love and vocation makes the book not only relatable to most readers, but ventures into critical themes that are often

He could tell by the way she took a deep breath and the light in her eyes she had felt it too. He watched the way her hips swayed as she walked and the way her thigh high boots hugged her long tanned thighs. He began imagining those thighs wrapped around his waist, he wanted to feel her ample breasts crushed beneath his chest. He gave himself a mental shake. The last thing he wanted was another woman like Roxanne, curves in all the right places and that innocent look in her eyes. They had an amazing sex life, but Roxanne had suddenly had a change of heart and moved on. He did not know what had happened, he thought they were happy together. They gave each other what they needed, a lot of freedom and sex. He did not know why it upset him that she had left, but it did ... He missed her. It was not in him to miss anyone. He was always the one to do the leaving, he had not been dumped since he was twelve. Women gravitated towards him, he knew he would not be lonely for long. There was always someone else wanting to pick up where the others had left

After ten years, Dallas was a beautiful lady. She was a successful accountant. She couldn’t ask for more. She was working at a successful business firm in the country. She owned a huge house in a well-known subdivision. She had everything, but her life felt empty—empty of happiness and a peaceful relationship.

I did not intend to fall in love with Ed Kennedy. For so long I knew that I was falling, and for so long I denied it. I did not want to get hurt again. He was my best friend and that wasn’t something that I wanted to tarnish. I refused to let love get in the way. Love, with its tender arms and beautiful face, can so, so brutal. Like a sledgehammer that rushes up and down my spine, crashes into my skull and vibrates deep inside my brain. Despite my reservations and my hesitations, Ed loved me, he pitied me, and I could see that he did. There was a wash of absence over him, like nostalgia for a future in which he was already living. He was there for me when concrete filled my soul, and held my hand when I could no longer tread the quicksand.

Zander was an amazing friend. He was always there for her and able to pull her out of any mood. She’d had a crush on him for a while before she realized that Max was what she’d thought she’d wanted. Zander was 29 year old musician who lived with his family still. He had gone to school for business and had almost gotten his degree before he’d just stopped. He never told her why he stopped but he'd just quit in his last year. Erin had liked him but he wasn’t a forever type of guy.

My name is Ragan Adams. My favorite movie is What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993 Film) which was loosely based on the life of Tina Turner. This is a movie about Tina Turner, and how she rose to be a star, while being physical and sexual assaulted by her own husband. The movie is the story about a young girl, Anna Mae Bullock, who grows up in the South; being abandoned by both of her parents. Anna Mae Bullock moves to St. Louis, meets her future husband Ike Turner, who then begins to mentor her as a singer. As Anna Mae rises to stardom her name is changed to Tina Turner. Anna Mae and Ike eventually got married. Thus is born Tina Turner. Tina Turner begins to lose more of her identity as the movie goes on. Tine and Ike’s marriage quickly turns

Everyday introduces the protagonist A, who is an undefined individual that wakes up each in a new body and navigates these individuals world avoiding creating lasting harm. A is neither male nor female, and when it comes to love his attraction is universal. A has no tangible forms of identity, but his e-mail account is the only object within his world that he can truly can his own. Furthermore, A is able to access the memory bank of any individual he is possessing so that he can navigate their life. While A has attempted to maintain a low profile for a long time by avoiding establishing ‘real’ connections with people, that is changed the day he wakes up as Justin. While inhabiting Justin A meets and falls in love with Rhiannon. Although A can accept his ever shifting identity and love Rhiannon, she can only accept a as an attractive male.

His idealized expectations disillusioned him and thus left him feeling great loss. It wasn’t the fact that he couldn’t triumph in his quest to impress the girl who lives in his neighborhood that made him feel this way, however, it was the fact that he had invested so much expectation and hope into this one pursuit that it destroyed his ability to ever look back at things the same way, it destroyed the innocent lens he had. Reality is a hard road to take and once it sets in, it can’t be ignored. To go back to childish beliefs of adventure and magic is only teasing and a waste of time wrapping up in the unreal.

Finding fulfillment in life requires people to truly understand their reality and is only achieved through an effort to grow out of one’s comfort zone. This idea is explored in the film Sing Street, directed by Jim Carney. The film follows the journey of Conor Lawlor, a shy schoolboy who gets moved from a private school into a strict Catholic school due to his parent’s financial situation. At Syng Street he is bullied by another student and his principle. A turning point occurs when he falls in love with a mysterious girl. After a desperate attempt to gain her phone number, he starts a band with a group of outcasts from his school. Throughout the film, Carney suggests the idea that to fulfill one’s happiness, a person needs to make an effort to take a risk and push beyond their comfort zone, and while doing so they also need to gain a sense of confidence in their identity. It is necessary to grow beyond hindering beliefs to achieve a new perspective on life to lead to happiness.