Laura Kipnis The Myth Of Love Summary

“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely” (Unknown). People change and grow because of the challenges and conflicts they have in life. A person I know that has changed and grown a lot from a conflict is my mom because a couple years ago she ripped a tendon in her back, and she had to get many surgeries and wasn’t able to walk for a while. She grew a lot from that experience and now she can walk and is still getting better. In “The Street” by Richard Wright the young boy narrator has to overcome his fears and fight some thugs in order to buy his mom groceries. He faces an incredible challenge that makes him have to change extremely quickly. In “First Love” by Judith Ortiz Cofer the girl narrator has a crush on a boy that is a couple

Aubrey’s mum turned up and told Aubrey that she didn’t come because some days are too hard

In Roberta Bondi’s book, To Love as God Loves, in her own struggle with Christianity, she studies the early manuscripts and the lives of the early monastics. These writings shed light and clarity to understanding the love of God.

Ever since the beginning of time, love has played an enormous role among humans. Everyone feels a need to love and to be loved. Some attempt to fill this yearning with activities and possessions that will not satisfy – with activities in which they should not participate and possessions they should not own. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” the speaker encounters an emotion some would call love but fits better under the designation of lust for a woman. In contrast, the speaker of Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” urges virgins to marry, to make a lasting commitment in which love plays a

     In contrast to these fairly pessimistic views on love, the author describes an instance in which a couple found true love. Mel tells an anecdote of an old couple that was admitted to the emergency room after a very bad car accident. The two people were wrapped up in full body casts, and as a result they could not see each other. Mel noticed that the old man was very sad, even

In this global era of evolving civilization, it is increasingly difficult to ignore the fascinating fact about love. Love is a feeling of intimacy, warmth, and attachment. Love is inevitable and it plays a vital role in human life as Janie uses her experience with the pear tree to compare each of her relationships, but it is not until Tea Cake that she finds “a bee to her bloom.” (106).

We live in a society that has increasingly stomped on love, depicting it as cruel, superficial and full of complications. Nowadays it is easy for people to claim that they are in love, even when their actions say otherwise, and it is just as easy to claim that they are not when they really are. Real love is difficult to find and keeping it alive is even harder, especially when one must overcome their own anxieties and uncertainties. This is the main theme present in Russell Banks’ short story “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” as well as in “The Fireman’s Wife,” written by Richard Bausch. These narratives, although similar in some aspects, are completely different types of love stories.

Love is undoubtedly one of the most frequently explored subjects in the literary world. Whether the focus is a confession of love, criticism of love, tale of love, or simply a tale about what love is, such literary pieces force readers to question the true meaning and value of love. Raymond Carver accomplishes this in his short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” As the unadorned setting and the personality of each character unfold, the reader realizes that Carver is making a grave comment on the existence of love. Carver utilizes strong contrast, imagery, and diction to ultimately suggest that love cannot be defined concretely and therefore cannot be defined in words, and because of this, it is better off unexplored.

Diane Ackerman’s purpose for writing her essay “Love’s Vocabulary” is to inform the reader not to underestimate love since love is the great intangible and cannot be defined, but can be felt. The neutral and positive connotation of words such as “monotone” and “delirium” suggest Ackerman’s passionate tone about how love cannot be the same constant emotion that is felt everyday, but a powerful feeling that has many meanings since love is an emotion that is older than humanity itself. Ackerman’s use of figurative language, particularly metaphor and personification, reveal that Ackerman is trying to inform the reader that love is to intangible to be defined in a single word that is often used, which can also connect to her irritating attitude

Detached from love, being the “unloved”, and not knowing how to seek or expel love are all problems that are relevant to the lives of many. Through the plot of Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home,” Jesse Lee Kercheval’s “Carpathia,” and Susan Minot’s “Lust,” it is evident that love and its psychology plays a major role in one’s self worth and ability to love and accept it in

Love has been a part of life ever since the first man and woman was created. Over the period of thousands and thousands of years, love has evolved just like humans have. At one point, you found your "true" love based off who your family chose for you. As society became more modern, love has become more modern too. In today's society, you usually get to pick who your true love is based off your own preferences.

Sandra James has life all figured out, or so she thinks. But her successful business, commitment-averse boyfriend, and her sister’s shotgun wedding threaten her health and sanity. She will run to Love Never Fails Retreat in hopes of relinquishing her childhood dreams and embracing her reality even if it breaks her heart.

Against Love: a polemic, and a New York Times best seller by the famous Laura Kipnis. A book in which the institution of monogamy is put under a microscope and picked away at only to come the conclusion that you should decide for yourself whether marriage is worth it. There are a lot of interesting ideas and questions brought up throughout this book. Like, you can’t have adultery without marriage (p176) and why is polygamy frowned upon while serial monogamy is okay (pg. 172)? But the point that caught my eye the most while reading this book is when Kipnis wrote “A “happy” state of monogamy would be defined as a state you don’t have to work at maintaining” (pg. 17).

While people are often able to identify when they feel the emotion love, love itself seems to defy definition.  In her polemic “Against Love”, Laura Kipnis argues that love cannot exist as traditional expressions of love such as marriage, monogamy, and mutuality.  However, in her argument, she defines love incorrectly by equating love to expressions of love. This definition lacks a component essential to understanding the abstract concept of love: emotion. Recognizing love as emotion helps us realize that, contrary to Kipnis’ argument love by nature transcends all expressions of love. Love is subjective and exists in any and all forms. In her argument that love cannot survive as conventional expressions of love, Kipnis ignores the nature of love as emotion in favor of equating love to different expressions of love. Love is a force which exists above expressions of love; a true understanding of love can only come from an assessment of how individuals, not societies, respond to the emotion.

There are many interpretations on the purpose of life. While interpretations of this topic are very subjective, there are those who may argue that life is about trying to find one’s own happiness in the world. There are many ways that make people happy in this world; one of the more prominent ways of achieving happiness is through deep and meaningful human companionship. Still, begs the question: does the need and feelings for love and intimacy change throughout one’s lifetime? Will they grow? Will they waiver? Will they remain the same? These are the questions Steven Loring explores in his 2014 documentary film: The Age of Love.