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The History Of Love Analysis

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"The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss follows three main characters' journey of life and love. As the story progresses the three characters' lives intertwine, helping to progress the narrative. Throughout the story Krauss introduces various themes in order to create and bring depth to the story. One of the notable themes in this novel is how a consuming love can lead to loneliness in one's life. Krauss explores both love and loneliness in her novel and creates a story that explains the connection between the two. The first character introduced to the reader is Leopoldo Gursky, an immigrant from Poland, who lived all of his life in love with only one woman, Alma. Leo describes his love for Alma as "a secret they told no one. He promised to her he would never love another girl as long as he lives". Krauss devises a sentence that depicts a theme of love. Through this sentence she not only creates the theme of love but also foreshadows the loneliness that Leo will experience because of this love. Krauss not only depicts the theme of love through Leo's unconditional love but also foreshadows the loneliness that Leo will experience because of his wistful love for Alma. Leo went through many hardships in Poland just to reach Alma in America, "you could say it was his love for her that saved him". Although his love for her did save him, he only concentrated on reaching Alma that it turned him into "a man who had become invisible" by the time he arrived in America.As Krauss says Leo becomes invisible on the path to finding Alma and consequently becomes lonely without realizing it. The passage goes on to say, "if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love as long as he lived kept his promise, it was not because he was stubborn or loyal. It was because he could not help it". Leo does keep his love for Alma and as Kraus describes Leo never falls in love again even after discovering that Alma had moved on. Although Alma had moved on, Leo loved her still, which lead him to isolate himself from the everything but his love. Through the story of Leo and Alma, Krauss presents a bigger theme, that a consuming love can lead to loneliness. In the case of Leo that theme was present with his

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