an essay about the love

Before You Write a Love Essay, Read This to Get Examples

The day will come when you can’t escape the fate of all students: You will have to write a what is love essay.

No worries:

Here you’ll find tons of love essay topics and examples. No time to read everything? Scroll down to get a free PDF with original samples.

Definition: Essay on Love

First, let’s define what is love essay?

The most common topics are:

• Definition of love
• What is love?
• Meaning of love

Why limit yourself to these hackneyed, general themes? Below, I’ll show how to make your paper on love original yet relevant to the prompt you get from teachers.

Love Essay Topics: 20 Ideas to Choose for Your Paper

Your essay on love and relationship doesn’t have to be super official and unemotional. It’s ok to share reflections and personal opinions when writing about romance.

Often, students get a general task to write an essay on love. It means they can choose a theme and a title for their paper. If that’s your case,  feel free to try any of these love essay topics:

• Exploring the impact of love on individuals and relationships.
• Love in the digital age: Navigating romance in a tech world.
• Is there any essence and significance in unconditional love?
• Love as a universal language: Connecting hearts across cultures.
• Biochemistry of love: Exploring the process.
• Love vs. passion vs. obsession.
• How love helps cope with heartbreak and grief.
• The art of loving. How we breed intimacy and trust.
• The science behind attraction and attachment.
• How love and relationships shape our identity and help with self-discovery.
• Love and vulnerability: How to embrace emotional openness.
• Romance is more complex than most think: Passion, intimacy, and commitment explained.
• Love as empathy: Building sympathetic connections in a cruel world.
• Evolution of love. How people described it throughout history.
• The role of love in mental and emotional well-being.
• Love as a tool to look and find purpose in life.
• Welcoming diversity in relations through love and acceptance.
• Love vs. friendship: The intersection of platonic and romantic bonds.
• The choices we make and challenges we overcome for those we love.
• Love and forgiveness: How its power heals wounds and strengthens bonds.

Love Essay Examples: Choose Your Sample for Inspiration

Essays about love are usually standard, 5-paragraph papers students write in college:

• One paragraph is for an introduction, with a hook and a thesis statement
• Three are for a body, with arguments or descriptions
• One last passage is for a conclusion, with a thesis restatement and final thoughts

Below are the ready-made samples to consider. They’ll help you see what an essay about love with an introduction, body, and conclusion looks like.

What is love essay: 250 words

Lao Tzu once said, “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Indeed, love can transform individuals, relationships, and our world.

A word of immense depth and countless interpretations, love has always fascinated philosophers, poets, and ordinary individuals. This  emotion breaks boundaries and has a super power to change lives. But what is love, actually?

It’s a force we feel in countless ways. It is the warm embrace of a parent, filled with care and unwavering support. It is the gentle touch of a lover, sparking a flame that ignites passion and desire. Love is the kind words of a friend, offering solace and understanding in times of need. It is the selfless acts of compassion and empathy that bind humanity together.

Love is not confined to romantic relationships alone. It is found in the family bonds, the connections we forge with friends, and even the compassion we extend to strangers. Love is a thread that weaves through the fabric of our lives, enriching and nourishing our souls.

However, love is not without its complexities. It can be both euphoric and agonizing, uplifting and devastating. Love requires vulnerability, trust, and the willingness to embrace joy and pain. It is a delicate balance between passion and compassion, independence and interdependence.

Finally, the essence of love may be elusive to define with mere words. It is an experience that surpasses language and logic, encompassing a spectrum of emotions and actions. Love is a profound connection that unites us all, reminding us of our shared humanity and the capacity for boundless compassion.

What is love essay: 500 words

A 500-word essay on why I love you

Trying to encapsulate why I love you in a mere 500 words is impossible. My love for you goes beyond the confines of language, transcending words and dwelling in the realm of emotions, connections, and shared experiences. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to express the depth and breadth of my affection for you.

First and foremost, I love you for who you are. You possess a unique blend of qualities and characteristics that captivate my heart and mind. Your kindness and compassion touch the lives of those around you, and I am grateful to be the recipient of your unwavering care and understanding. Your intelligence and wit constantly challenge me to grow and learn, stimulating my mind and enriching our conversations. You have a beautiful spirit that radiates warmth and joy, and I am drawn to your vibrant energy.

I love the way you make me feel. When I am with you, I feel a sense of comfort and security that allows me to be my true self. Your presence envelops me in a cocoon of love and acceptance, where I can express my thoughts, fears, and dreams without fear of judgment. Your support and encouragement inspire me to pursue my passions and overcome obstacles. With you by my side, I feel empowered to face the world, knowing I have a partner who believes in me.

I love the memories we have created together. From the laughter-filled moments of shared adventures to the quiet and intimate conversations, every memory is etched in my heart. Whether exploring new places, indulging in our favorite activities, or simply enjoying each other’s company in comfortable silence, each experience reinforces our bond. Our shared memories serve as a foundation for our relationship, a testament to the depth of our connection and the love that binds us.

I love your quirks and imperfections. Your true essence shines through these unique aspects! Your little traits make me smile and remind me of the beautiful individual you are. I love how you wrinkle your nose when you laugh, become lost in thought when reading a book, and even sing off-key in the shower. These imperfections make you human, relatable, and utterly lovable.

I love the future we envision together. We support each other’s goals, cheering one another on as we navigate the path toward our dreams. The thought of building a life together, creating a home filled with love and shared experiences, fills my heart with anticipation and excitement. The future we imagine is one that I am eager to explore with you by my side.

In conclusion, the reasons why I love you are as vast and varied as the universe itself. It is a love that defies logic and surpasses the limitations of language. From the depths of my being, I love you for the person you are, the way you make me feel, the memories we cherish, your quirks and imperfections, and the future we envision together. My love for you is boundless, unconditional, and everlasting.

A 5-paragraph essay about love

I’ve gathered all the samples (and a few bonus ones) in one PDF. It’s free to download. So, you can keep it at hand when the time comes to write a love essay.

Ready to Write Your Essay About Love?

Now that you know the definition of a love essay and have many topic ideas, it’s time to write your A-worthy paper! Here go the steps:

• Check all the examples of what is love essay from this post.
• Choose the topic and angle that fits your prompt best.
• Write your original and inspiring story.

Any questions left? Our writers are all ears. Please don’t hesitate to ask!

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Essay on Love for Students and Children

500+ words essay on love.

Love is the most significant thing in human’s life. Each science and every single literature masterwork will tell you about it. Humans are also social animals. We lived for centuries with this way of life, we were depended on one another to tell us how our clothes fit us, how our body is whether healthy or emaciated. All these we get the honest opinions of those who love us, those who care for us and makes our happiness paramount.

What is Love?

Love is a set of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs with strong feelings of affection. So, for example, a person might say he or she loves his or her dog, loves freedom, or loves God. The concept of love may become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way.

Love has a variety of feelings, emotions, and attitude. For someone love is more than just being interested physically in another one, rather it is an emotional attachment. We can say love is more of a feeling that a person feels for another person. Therefore, the basic meaning of love is to feel more than liking towards someone.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Need of Love

We know that the desire to love and care for others is a hard-wired and deep-hearted because the fulfillment of this wish increases the happiness level. Expressing love for others benefits not just the recipient of affection, but also the person who delivers it. The need to be loved can be considered as one of our most basic and fundamental needs.

One of the forms that this need can take is contact comfort. It is the desire to be held and touched. So there are many experiments showing that babies who are not having contact comfort, especially during the first six months, grow up to be psychologically damaged.

Significance of Love

Love is as critical for the mind and body of a human being as oxygen. Therefore, the more connected you are, the healthier you will be physically as well as emotionally. It is also true that the less love you have, the level of depression will be more in your life. So, we can say that love is probably the best antidepressant.

It is also a fact that the most depressed people don’t love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also become self-focused and hence making themselves less attractive to others.

Society and Love

It is a scientific fact that society functions better when there is a certain sense of community. Compassion and love are the glue for society. Hence without it, there is no feeling of togetherness for further evolution and progress. Love , compassion, trust and caring we can say that these are the building blocks of relationships and society.

Relationship and Love

A relationship is comprised of many things such as friendship , sexual attraction , intellectual compatibility, and finally love. Love is the binding element that keeps a relationship strong and solid. But how do you know if you are in love in true sense? Here are some symptoms that the emotion you are feeling is healthy, life-enhancing love.

Love is the Greatest Wealth in Life

Love is the greatest wealth in life because we buy things we love for our happiness. For example, we build our dream house and purchase a favorite car to attract love. Being loved in a remote environment is a better experience than been hated even in the most advanced environment.

Love or Money

Love should be given more importance than money as love is always everlasting. Money is important to live, but having a true companion you can always trust should come before that. If you love each other, you will both work hard to help each other live an amazing life together.

Love has been a vital reason we do most things in our life. Before we could know ourselves, we got showered by it from our close relatives like mothers , fathers , siblings, etc. Thus love is a unique gift for shaping us and our life. Therefore, we can say that love is a basic need of life. It plays a vital role in our life, society, and relation. It gives us energy and motivation in a difficult time. Finally, we can say that it is greater than any other thing in life.

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Feb 20, 2023

250-500 Word Example Essays About Love and Romance

Got an Essay assignment about Love and Romance? Let us help you out with these inspiring Examples!

Love, an emotion that has captivated the hearts and minds of poets, authors, and artists throughout history, remains a profound and multi-faceted subject. While the depth and complexity of this emotion can make it a daunting topic to explore in an essay, the right resources can turn this challenge into a rewarding endeavor. For those looking to capture the essence of love and romance in their writing, our essay writer can be a beacon of inspiration and assistance. This tool, powered by Jenni.ai, offers a seamless journey through the essay-writing process, from brainstorming ideas to refining the final draft. 

Whether you're delving into argumentative, persuasive , or reflective essays about love, Jenni.ai ensures clarity, coherence, and a touch of elegance in your prose. It's a trusted companion for students, educators, and seasoned writers alike, simplifying the writing journey every step of the way.

1. The Evolution of Love: A Study of the Changing Nature of Romance throughout History

Introduction.

Love is one of humanity's most complicated and mysterious emotions. People have strived to comprehend and define Love throughout history, resulting in many works of literature, art, and music dedicated to the subject. Despite its universal appeal, the nature of Love has evolved significantly throughout time, reflecting evolving cultural, social, and economic situations. In this essay, we will look at the evolution of Love, from ancient times to the present.

Ancient Love

A. Greek and Roman Love

Love was viewed as a complex and varied feeling in ancient Greece and Rome, comprising characteristics of desire, friendship, and awe. Love was frequently represented as a tremendous force in ancient civilizations, capable of both propelling individuals to high heights of success and bringing them down into the depths of sorrow. This was especially true of romantic Love, which was glorified in epic poems like the Iliad and Odyssey , as well as works of art and literature depicting the hardships and sufferings of star-crossed lovers.

B. Medieval Love

A chivalric code known as courtly Love emerged in medieval Europe. Its core tenants were the importance of Love, honour, and devotion. During this time, romantic Love was typically portrayed as an unrequited emotion, with the lover pining for the affections of a faraway and unreachable beloved. Medieval poets and troubadours mirrored this romanticised picture of Love in their works by singing and writing about the highs and lows of passionate Love.

Modern Love

A. The Renaissance

The idealized picture of Love that had ruled for centuries was called into question by artists and intellectuals during the Renaissance, marking a turning point in the development of romantic relationships. During this time, romantic Love was portrayed as more tactile and visceral. Shakespeare, for instance, reflected the shifting beliefs of his day by exploring the nuanced and often tragic nature of Love in his works.

B. The Enlightenment

The concepts of reason and individuality began to gain root during the Enlightenment, and with that came a shift in how people saw Love. Political marriages and alliances were often formed based on Love, which was now considered a more sensible and practical feeling. Thinkers from the Enlightenment period, including Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, shared this perspective on Love as a tool for bettering society and the individual.

C. The Modern Era

Today, the word "love" is most often used to describe a feeling one has when they are in a committed relationship or when one has achieved their own goals. Love has become a consumable good thanks to the spread of consumerism and the worship of the individual. The media and arts reflect this conception of Love by depicting it as a means to one's fulfillment and contentment.

The changing cultural, social, and economic conditions of each historical epoch are reflected in the history of Love. The essence of Love has changed dramatically throughout the years, from its idealised image in ancient Greece and Rome to its depiction as a spiritual tie in mediaeval Europe to its current identification with romantic relationships and personal fulfilment. Despite these changes, Love remains a strong and enduring force in human existence, inspiring numerous works of art, literature, and music and affecting how we live and interact with one another.

2. The Power of Love: Examining the Impact of Love on Our Lives and Relationships

Love is a strong feeling that may dramatically alter our life and the bonds we form with others. love, whether romantic, familial, or platonic, can unite us and improve our lives in countless ways., the benefits of love.

A. Improved Physical Health

Love has been demonstrated to improve physical health by decreasing stress, lowering blood pressure, and increasing immunity. The hormone oxytocin, which is released in response to social bonding and has been demonstrated to reduce physiological responses to stress, is thought to be at play here.

B. Enhanced Mental Health

In addition to its physical benefits, Love has been shown to have a beneficial effect on our mental health, lowering stress and anxiety levels and boosting our general sense of happiness. The protective powers of Love against the negative consequences of stress and other difficulties in life are well accepted.

C. Strengthened Relationships

A stronger tie may be formed between two people via the power of Love. Relationships of all kinds, whether romantic, familial, or platonic, may benefit from the strengthening effects of Love by increasing their levels of closeness, trust, and mutual understanding.

The Challenges of Love

A. Love can be painful

Sometimes Love hurts, as when a relationship ends or when we can't find the one we're looking for. One of life's most trying events is losing someone we care about, which may leave us feeling isolated, discouraged, and empty.

The Power of Love to Overcome Challenges

Despite these difficulties, Love may help us overcome them and grow closer to one another. The strength of Love is that it may help us learn and grow, both as people and as a community, via its many forms, such as forgiveness, compromise, and the willingness to persevere through adversity.

Finally, Love is a strong and transformational force that may profoundly influence our lives and relationships. Love may provide us joy, comfort, and a feeling of purpose, whether between friends, family, or romantic partners. Despite its numerous advantages, Love may also bring with it difficulties such as heartbreak and strife. Nonetheless, never underestimate the power of Love. 

It has the potential to draw people together and form deep, long-lasting bonds. Love has the power to make the world a better place, whether through acts of kindness, selflessness, or simply being there for one another. So, let us embrace Love in all of its manifestations and harness its potential to improve our lives and the lives of those around us.

3. The Science of Love: Understanding the Biology and Psychology Behind Love and Attraction

For millennia, people have been drawn and intrigued by the intricate and intriguing feeling of Love. Despite its enormous global significance, the science of Love is now being thoroughly investigated. This paper will investigate the biology and psychology of Love and attraction, delving into the different elements that impact these powerful emotions and how they form our relationships.

The Biology of Love

A. Hormone Function

Love is a biological process controlled by chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. These hormones influence our sensations of attraction, enthusiasm, and enjoyment and boost sentiments of trust and closeness.

B. The Influence of Genetics

Genetics also has an impact on Love and attraction, with some personality qualities and physical characteristics that are considered to be appealing to potential spouses being handed down from generation to generation. This suggests that particular preferences for specific sorts of people are hardwired into our genetics, influencing our romantic and sexual attraction patterns.

The Psychology of Love

A. The Role of Attachment Styles

Our attachment types, which we acquire from our early connections with our caretakers, also affect our Love. These attachment types can significantly influence our later relationships, influencing how we build and keep deep attachments with others.

B. The Impact of Social Norms and Values

Cultural Values

Social conventions and cultural ideas also impact Love and attraction, with societal expectations and values impacting our romantic and sexual impulses. These social conventions and cultural ideas influence everything from who we are attracted to and how we approach and pursue relationships.

The Meeting of Biology and

Love Psychology

The biology and psychology of Love are inextricably linked and interdependent, with one having a complicated and subtle impact on the other. This suggests that, while biology influences our sentiments of attraction and Love, our psychological experiences and beliefs may equally shape these emotions.

To summarise, love science is a complicated and intriguing discipline that encompasses the biology and psychology of this strong and transformational emotion. By investigating the elements that impact Love and attraction, we may gain a deeper understanding of the systems that underpin these feelings and how they shape our lives and relationships. The study of Love is a vital and beneficial effort, whether we seek Love, attempt to preserve Love, or wonder about the science underlying this feeling.

4. The Fine Line Between Love and Obsession: Exploring the Dark Side of Love

Love is a powerful and transformative emotion that can bring immense joy and fulfilment to our lives. But Love can also turn dark and dangerous when it crosses the line into obsession. This essay will examine the fine line between Love and obsession, exploring how Love can become unhealthy and dangerous.

The Characteristics of Obsessive Love

A. Unhealthy Attachment

Obsessive Love is characterized by an unhealthy attachment to another person, with the obsessed person becoming overly dependent on their partner for emotional fulfilment. This can lead to feelings of possessiveness and jealousy, as well as a need for constant attention and validation.

B. Control and Manipulation

Obsessive Love can also involve control and manipulation, with the obsessed person trying to control every aspect of their partner's life and behaviour. This can range from minor acts of manipulation, such as trying to dictate what their partner wears or who they spend time with, to more serious forms of control, such as physical abuse or stalking.

The Dark Side of Love

A. Stalking and Harassment

The dark side of Love can take many forms, with stalking and harassment being among the most extreme and dangerous forms of obsessive behaviour. Stalking and harassment can have serious and long-lasting consequences for the victim, causing fear, stress, and trauma that can impact their mental and physical well-being.

B. Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is another form of the dark side of Love, with physical, sexual, and psychological abuse being used as a means of control and domination. Domestic violence can have devastating consequences for the victim, often leading to serious injury or even death.

The Roots of Obsessive Love

A. Psychological Issues

Obsessive Love can have its roots in psychological issues, including depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder. These conditions can lead to feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem, making it difficult for individuals to form healthy relationships.

B. Cultural and Social Factors

Cultural and social factors can also play a role in the development of obsessive Love, with certain societal beliefs and norms promoting possessiveness and control in relationships. This can include gender roles, expectations, and cultural beliefs about Love and relationships.

In conclusion, the fine line between Love and obsession is delicate and dangerous, with Love crossing over into unhealthy and dangerous territory when it becomes obsessive. By understanding the characteristics of obsessive Love and how it can take dark and dangerous forms, we can better protect ourselves and our loved ones from the negative consequences of this powerful emotion.

5. The Concept of Unconditional Love: An Analysis of the Ideal of Selfless Love

All kinds of different things count as Love since it's such a complicated and diverse feeling. Unconditional Love is frequently depicted as altruistic, all-encompassing, and unshakable, making it one of the most romanticized types. In this essay, I'd discuss the idea of unconditional Love, defining it and contrasting it with other types of affection.

An Explanation of Selfless Love

A. Selfless Love

The term "unconditional love" is commonly used to describe a type of Love that puts the other person's needs before its own. In this kind of Love, one person cares for another without any thought of return or compensation.

B. Love that encompasses everything

Many people use the term "all-encompassing" to express how unconditional Love embraces a person regardless of who they are or what they've done in their lives. A love like this doesn't depend on the other person changing or improving in any way; rather, it's an unconditional embrace of the person as they are.

The Ideal of Unconditional Love

A. Love Without Conditions

Unconditional Love is a romantic ideal in which the lover places no restrictions on the object of his affection. Since it involves so much giving of oneself, this kind of Love is typically held up as the pinnacle of romantic relationships.

B. Putting the Feeling into Action

However, since we are all flawed human beings, practising unconditional Love can be challenging in daily life. Although this may be the case, the ideal of unconditional Love is still significant since it motivates us to improve our Love and compassion towards others.

The Advantages of Unconditional Love

A. Stronger Connections

Unconditional Love has the potential to improve our connections with others, leading to deeper and more meaningful bonds. This kind of Love creates a non-judgmental and welcoming attitude towards people, which can assist to lessen conflict and improve understanding.

B. More Joy and Satisfaction

As a result of the more profound relationships it fosters, unconditional Love may also increase a person's sense of well-being and contentment. Finding Love like this may give our life new meaning and make us feel whole.

In conclusion, many of us hold unconditional Love as a relationship goal. Even if it's not always possible, the ideal of unconditional Love is worthwhile since it motivates us to increase our Love and compassion. The concept of unconditional Love may lead us to a more meaningful and happy lifestyle, whether our goal is to better our relationships or to find more pleasure and contentment in general.

6. The Importance of Communication in Love Relationships: A Study of the Role of Communication in Maintaining Love

Love relationships, like all others, benefit greatly from open lines of communication between partners. Connecting with one another on a regular basis, whether it's to chat about the day, express emotions, or problem-solve, is crucial to keeping the Love alive between you. This essay will discuss the significance of communication in romantic relationships, specifically how it helps couples stay together and grow closer over time.

Advantages of good communication

Increased Compatibility and Mutual Understanding

Love partnerships benefit significantly from open lines of communication that facilitate mutual understanding and closeness. Sharing our innermost ideas, emotions, and experiences with our partners via direct and honest communication strengthens our bonds with them.

Reduced Conflict

As we can better address difficulties and find positive solutions to differences when communicating effectively, we experience less conflict in our relationships. Relationships may be stronger and more loving by talking through differences and finding common ground.

The Difficulties in Expressing Your Feelings in a Romantic Relationship

A. Confusing Messages and Confused Intents

Good communication can sometimes be difficult, especially in romantic partnerships, despite its many advantages. Conflict, anger and a lack of trust may all result from poor communication and misunderstandings in relationships.

B. Vulnerability and Emotional Safety

Likewise, it takes courage and trust to open up and talk about your feelings with the person you love. It may be nerve-wracking to communicate our innermost thoughts and feelings with a partner because of the risk of being judged harshly or rejected.

The Importance of Active Listening

What is Active Listening?

Maintaining positive connections with others requires not just good talkers but also good listeners. Paying close attention to the other person as they speak and making an effort to get their viewpoint and requirements is an essential component of active listening.

The Benefits of Active Listening

The ability to listen attentively and process information can have a significant influence on interpersonal bonds. You may show your spouse how much you value their opinion and the commitment you have to the relationship by listening attentively to what they have to say.

Finally, it's important to note that communication is a cornerstone of successful, loving partnerships. Communication is crucial for developing and maintaining healthy relationships , whether it is via problem-solving, venting, or just listening. Your relationship may grow stronger and become more rewarding and loving if you put an emphasis on communicating well with one another.

Final Words

Love is a complicated and varied theme that has inspired numerous works of art, literature, and music. Whether it is the science of Love, the power of Love, or the development of Love, there is a great deal to learn and comprehend about this universal feeling. 

Students now have access to a potent tool that may assist them in writing essays about Love with ease and assurance thanks to Jenni.ai. From giving ideas and recommendations to leading you through the writing process, Jenni.ai is the ideal option for anyone who wants to write about Love and relationships. Why then wait? Sign up for a free trial of Jenni.ai today and explore its numerous writing perks!

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• School Education /

Essay on Love:- Sample Essays for Students in 100, 200 and 300 words

• Updated on  
• Feb 2, 2024

Can a person live without love? Is it the essence of survival? Why do we fall for someone? What is the meaning of love?  Love is one of the most important feelings in human life. Humans are social animals and we have lived for centuries with this way of life where we take confidence in asking another person how our clothes fit us, or how we look. Those who love us, give us the most honest opinions and make our happiness paramount which means love is found in joy, fulfilment and a sense of purpose.

Also Read: 99+ Psychology Facts About Human Behaviour You Would Find Interesting

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Love in 100 words
• 2 Essay on Love in 200 words
• 3 Essay on Love in 300 words

Essay on Love in 100 words

Love is the very essence of the human life. Without love, the world would become cold and bleak. God has gifted us different kinds of emotions and love is one the most beautiful of them all. It is an emotion that each of us has experienced at some point in our lives. When someone shows us their love, it makes us feel complete and special. It is like a divine energy that nourishes us throughout our lives. Love has a lot of positive aspects. It provides a foundation on which an individual builds, relishes, and nurtures. Furthermore, this intense feeling shows us how to deepen our emotions. We can say that giving love is a way of worshipping God.

Also Read:- Heart-Touching Mother’s Day 2023 Quotes

Essay on Love in 200 words

Love is a feeling of strong affection and bonding towards an individual. The very concept of love might become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way. 

Love comprises feelings, attitudes, and emotions. The feeling is more than just a physical attraction, emotional connection, and a soulful bond. The very basic meaning of love is to feel more than just liking someone. Expressing the same is a wonderful experience. Love is one of the most basic human needs. Everyone wants to feel loved. It is something that completes an individual and brings peace to them.

Love is important for the mind as well as for the body. The more connected you are, the healthier you will be especially emotionally. It is true that love even eradicates depression. It is that much powerful. It is one of the best antidepressants. Life without love would be unimaginable.

Love is something that ends conflicts, brings light into one’s life, gives hope, and makes life worth living. It brings warmth that is needed to nurture life and an individual too. Without love, the world would become a cold and bleak place for everyone. Love builds and heals.

Also Read:-   Speech on Love is More Powerful Than Hate

Essay on Love in 300 words

Love consists of a set of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs with strong feelings of affection. A person might say that they love their dog. The very concept of love is different for each individual as it may happen to each person in a particular way. We can say that it is more than just liking someone, it is an emotional attachment. 

Though love is important in every way still, let us have a look how this intense feeling relates to our bodies as well as to our relations:

1. Hormone of Love

Love helps our body to produce oxytocin, the feel-good hormone and is probably one of the best antidepressants. It makes any individual healthier especially emotionally.

2. Basic Necessity

Love is one of the most basic human needs. Expressing it to others benefits both, the person who delivers it as well as the recipient. One of the ways it can be shown to close ones is as contact comfort. Several experiments show that the babies who were not given contact comfort, especially during the first six months, grow up to be psychologically damaged. 

3. Makes Relations Healthy

In a relationship, Love is the binding element that keeps it strong and makes it grow. The individuals in love, are much more emotionally connected making them connected on a soulful level. The comfort in that is unparalleled. 

Love is the very essence of existence. Life without love is not worthy of being lived. Before we are even aware, love is showered on us each day by our mothers, fathers, siblings, etc. It is a unique gift that helps us shape our lives. Without it, the society would perish. Love motivates us in the darkest times, helps us to overcome negativity and gives us purpose in our lives with new perspectives. It is greater than anything else in life.

Also Read: Speech on Mother Daughter Relationship for School Students

Love is the very essence of the human life. Without love, the world would become cold and bleak. God has gifted us several different kinds of emotions and love is one the most beautiful of them all. It is one such emotion that each of us has experienced at some point in our lives. When someone shows us their love, it makes us feel complete, it makes us feel special. Like a divine energy, love nourishes us throughout our lives. It has a lot of positive aspects such as it provides a foundation on which an individual builds, relishes, nurtures, and heals, it shows us how to deepen our emotions. We can say that giving love is a way of worshipping god.

Love is a feeling of strong affection and bonding towards an individual. The very concept of love might become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way.

Love is the very essence of existence. Life without love is not worthy to be lived. Before we are even aware, love is showered on us each day by our mothers, fathers, siblings, etc. It is a unique gift that helps us shape our lives. Without it, the society would perish. Love gives us the motivation we need even in the darkest of times, it helps us overcome negativity and gives us purpose in our life and new perspectives. It is greater than anything else in life.

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Essays About Love and Relationships: Top 5 Examples

Love, romance, and relationships are just as complicated and messy as they are fascinating. Read our guide on essays about love and relationships.

We, as humans, are social beings. Humanity is inclined towards living with others of our kind and forming relationships with them. Love, whether in a romantic context or otherwise, is essential to a strong relationship with someone. It can be used to describe familial, friendly, or romantic relationships; however, it most commonly refers to romantic partners. 

Love and relationships are difficult to understand, but with effort, devotion, and good intentions, they can blossom into something beautiful that will stay with you for life. This is why it is important to be able to discern wisely when choosing a potential partner.

5 Essay Examples

1. love and marriage by kannamma shanmugasundaram, 2. what my short-term relationships taught me about love and life by aaron zhu, 3. true love waits by christine barrett, 4. choosing the right relationship by robert solley, 5. masters of love by emily esfahani smith, 1. what is a healthy romantic relationship, 2. a favorite love story, 3. relationship experiences, 4. lessons relationships can teach you, 5. love and relationships in the 21st century, 6. is marriage necessary for true love.

“In successful love marriages, couples have to learn to look past these imperfections and remember the reasons why they married each other in the first place. They must be able to accept the fact that neither one of them is perfect. Successful love marriages need to set aside these superior, seemingly impossible expectations and be willing to compromise, settling for some good and some bad.”

Shanmugasundaram’s essay looks at marriage in Eastern Cultures, such as her Indian traditions, in which women have less freedom and are often forced into arranged marriages. Shanmugasundaram discusses her differing views with her parents over marriage; they prefer to stick to tradition while she, influenced by Western values, wants to choose for herself. Ultimately, she has compromised with her parents: they will have a say in who she marries, but it will be up to her to make the final decision. She will only marry who she loves. 

“There is no forever, I’ve been promised forever by so many exes that it’s as meaningless to me as a homeless person promising me a pot of gold. From here on out, I’m no longer looking for promises of forever, what I want is the promise that you’ll try your best and you’ll be worth it. Don’t promise me forever, promise me that there will be no regrets.”

In Zhu’s essay, he reflects on his lessons regarding love and relationships. His experiences with past partners have taught him many things, including self-worth and the inability to change others. Most interestingly, however, he believes that “forever” does not exist and that going into a relationship, they should commit to as long as possible, not “forever.” Furthermore, they should commit to making the relationship worthwhile without regret. 

“For life is a constant change, love is the greatest surprise, friendship is your best defense, maturity comes with responsibility and death is just around the corner, so, expect little, assume nothing, learn from your mistakes, never fail to have faith that true love waits, take care of your friends, treasure your family, moderate your pride and throw up all hatred for God opens millions of flowers without forcing the buds, reminding us not to force our way but to wait for true love to happen perfectly in His time.”

Barrett writes about how teenagers often feel the need to be in a relationship or feel “love” as soon as possible. But unfortunately, our brains are not fully matured in our teenage years, so we are more likely to make mistakes. Barrett discourages teenagers from dating so early; she believes that they should let life take its course and enjoy life at the moment. Her message is that they shouldn’t be in a rush to grow up, for true love will come to those who are patient. You might also be interested in these essays about commitment and essays about girlfriends .

“A paucity of common interests gets blamed when relationships go south, but they are rarely the central problem. Nonetheless, it is good to have some — mostly in terms of having enough in common that there are things that you enjoy spending time doing together. The more important domains to consider are personality and values, and when it comes to personality, the key question is how does your potential partner handle stress.”

Solley, from a more psychological perspective, gives tips on how one can choose the ideal person to be in a relationship with. Love is a lifetime commitment, so much thought should be put into it. One should look at culture, values regarding spending money, and common interests. Solley believes that you should not always look for someone with the same interests, for what makes a relationship interesting is the partners’ differences and how they look past them. 

“There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think about it as a fixed trait: Either you have it or you don’t. Or you could think of kindness as a muscle. In some people, that muscle is naturally stronger than in others, but it can grow stronger in everyone with exercise. Masters tend to think about kindness as a muscle. They know that they have to exercise it to keep it in shape. They know, in other words, that a good relationship requires sustained hard work.”

Smith discusses research conducted over many years that explains the different aspects of a relationship, including intimacy, emotional strength, and kindness. She discusses kindness in-depth, saying that a relationship can test your kindness, but you must be willing to work to be kind if you love your partner. You might also be interested in these essays about divorce .

6 Writing Prompts On Essays About Love and Relationships

Everyone has a different idea of what makes a great relationship. For example, some prioritize assertiveness in their partner, while others prefer a calmer demeanor. You can write about different qualities and habits that a healthy, respectful relationship needs, such as quality time and patience. If you have personal experience, reflect on this as well; however, if you don’t, write about what you would hope from your future partner. 

Love and relationships have been an essential element in almost every literary work, movie, and television show; an example of each would be Romeo and Juliet , The Fault in Our Stars , and Grey’s Anatomy . Even seemingly unrelated movies, such as the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings franchises, have a romantic component. Describe a love story of your choice; explain its plot, characters, and, most importantly, how the theme of love and relationships is present. 

If you have been in a romantic relationship before, or if you are in one currently, reflect on your experience. Why did you pursue this relationship? Explore your relationship’s positive and negative sides and, if applicable, how it ended. If not, write about how you will try and prevent the relationship from ending.

All our experiences in life form us, relationships included. In your essay, reflect on ways romantic relationships can teach you new things and make you better; consider values such as self-worth, patience, and positivity. Then, as with the other prompts, use your personal experiences for a more interesting essay. Hou might find our guide on how to write a vow helpful.

How love, romance, and relationships are perceived has changed dramatically in recent years; from the nuclear family, we have seen greater acceptance of same-sex relationships, blended families, and relationships with more than two partners—research on how the notion of romantic relationships has changed and discuss this in your essay. 

More and more people in relationships are deciding not to get married. For a strong argumentative essay, discuss whether you agree with the idea that true love does not require marriage, so it is fine not to get married in the first place. Research the arguments of both sides, then make your claim. 

Check out our guide packed full of transition words for essays . If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

Martin is an avid writer specializing in editing and proofreading. He also enjoys literary analysis and writing about food and travel.

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Definition Essay: Love

Love is something that means very different things to different people. For some, love can be purely romantic, or even purely sexual. For others, real love is utterly unconditional and only truly exists between family members, or between people and a deity. And for some people, love is fluid, ever changing, and everywhere, and is felt for family, friends, partners, pets, and even inanimate objects, dead artists, and fictional characters. None of these people would be right or wrong, but one thing is certain: love is the most powerful force in the entire universe.

Between partners of any description, be they married or cohabiting, boyfriend and girlfriend, straight or gay, young or old, love is a relationship of mutual understanding and respect. Marriages and partnerships are often built on common ground that people find when they first meet; this can be as deep as sharing religious, philosophical or religious beliefs, or as simple as finding that you love the same film, book, or band.

This kind of love is often reliant on some kind of ‘chemistry’: that strange feeling that they give you in the pit of your stomach, and the feeling that nothing in the world is more important to you than enjoying the moment you’re in together. Some people feel that they experience love at first sight, where they know from the minute they set eyes on each other that they want to to be with that person, but something built on common interests and understanding must be stronger.

A parent’s love for a child can also often be described as love at first sight, but this is very strong because it comes from a natural instinct to protect our offspring. This love can often start before the baby is even born: you only have to look at the pride and excitement of many parents-to-be when they have their scans and feel their baby kick for the very first time. This kind of love is also felt by a child for its mother; it is unconditional for at least the first few years of life, and can also be felt between siblings.

It is the strength of this feeling that makes love the most powerful emotion that most of us will ever experience. People can do some dreadful things out of hate and fear, but love can push us to do much, much worse. And it is often love that can cause us to hate, whether it’s out of jealousy, or anger because our loved one has been hurt. Love, ultimately, is a sacrifice, whatever the relationship, and it must be the most powerful force in the universe because as human beings, we make true sacrifices for nothing less.

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This essay focuses on personal love, or the love of particular persons as such. Part of the philosophical task in understanding personal love is to distinguish the various kinds of personal love. For example, the way in which I love my wife is seemingly very different from the way I love my mother, my child, and my friend. This task has typically proceeded hand-in-hand with philosophical analyses of these kinds of personal love, analyses that in part respond to various puzzles about love. Can love be justified? If so, how? What is the value of personal love? What impact does love have on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved?

1. Preliminary Distinctions

2. love as union, 3. love as robust concern, 4.1 love as appraisal of value, 4.2 love as bestowal of value, 4.3 an intermediate position, 5.1 love as emotion proper, 5.2 love as emotion complex, 6. the value and justification of love, other internet resources, related entries.

In ordinary conversations, we often say things like the following:

• I love chocolate (or skiing).
• I love doing philosophy (or being a father).
• I love my dog (or cat).
• I love my wife (or mother or child or friend).

However, what is meant by ‘love’ differs from case to case. (1) may be understood as meaning merely that I like this thing or activity very much. In (2) the implication is typically that I find engaging in a certain activity or being a certain kind of person to be a part of my identity and so what makes my life worth living; I might just as well say that I value these. By contrast, (3) and (4) seem to indicate a mode of concern that cannot be neatly assimilated to anything else. Thus, we might understand the sort of love at issue in (4) to be, roughly, a matter of caring about another person as the person she is, for her own sake. (Accordingly, (3) may be understood as a kind of deficient mode of the sort of love we typically reserve for persons.) Philosophical accounts of love have focused primarily on the sort of personal love at issue in (4); such personal love will be the focus here (though see Frankfurt (1999) and Jaworska & Wonderly (2017) for attempts to provide a more general account that applies to non-persons as well).

Even within personal love, philosophers from the ancient Greeks on have traditionally distinguished three notions that can properly be called “love”: eros , agape , and philia . It will be useful to distinguish these three and say something about how contemporary discussions typically blur these distinctions (sometimes intentionally so) or use them for other purposes.

‘ Eros ’ originally meant love in the sense of a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual passion (Liddell et al., 1940). Nygren (1953a,b) describes eros as the “‘love of desire,’ or acquisitive love” and therefore as egocentric (1953b, p. 89). Soble (1989b, 1990) similarly describes eros as “selfish” and as a response to the merits of the beloved—especially the beloved’s goodness or beauty. What is evident in Soble’s description of eros is a shift away from the sexual: to love something in the “erosic” sense (to use the term Soble coins) is to love it in a way that, by being responsive to its merits, is dependent on reasons. Such an understanding of eros is encouraged by Plato’s discussion in the Symposium , in which Socrates understands sexual desire to be a deficient response to physical beauty in particular, a response which ought to be developed into a response to the beauty of a person’s soul and, ultimately, into a response to the form, Beauty.

Soble’s intent in understanding eros to be a reason-dependent sort of love is to articulate a sharp contrast with agape , a sort of love that does not respond to the value of its object. ‘ Agape ’ has come, primarily through the Christian tradition, to mean the sort of love God has for us persons, as well as our love for God and, by extension, of our love for each other—a kind of brotherly love. In the paradigm case of God’s love for us, agape is “spontaneous and unmotivated,” revealing not that we merit that love but that God’s nature is love (Nygren 1953b, p. 85). Rather than responding to antecedent value in its object, agape instead is supposed to create value in its object and therefore to initiate our fellowship with God (pp. 87–88). Consequently, Badhwar (2003, p. 58) characterizes agape as “independent of the loved individual’s fundamental characteristics as the particular person she is”; and Soble (1990, p. 5) infers that agape , in contrast to eros , is therefore not reason dependent but is rationally “incomprehensible,” admitting at best of causal or historical explanations. [ 1 ]

Finally, ‘ philia ’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling towards not just one’s friends but also possibly towards family members, business partners, and one’s country at large (Liddell et al., 1940; Cooper, 1977). Like eros , philia is generally (but not universally) understood to be responsive to (good) qualities in one’s beloved. This similarity between eros and philia has led Thomas (1987) to wonder whether the only difference between romantic love and friendship is the sexual involvement of the former—and whether that is adequate to account for the real differences we experience. The distinction between eros and philia becomes harder to draw with Soble’s attempt to diminish the importance of the sexual in eros (1990).

Maintaining the distinctions among eros , agape , and philia becomes even more difficult when faced with contemporary theories of love (including romantic love) and friendship. For, as discussed below, some theories of romantic love understand it along the lines of the agape tradition as creating value in the beloved (cf. Section 4.2 ), and other accounts of romantic love treat sexual activity as merely the expression of what otherwise looks very much like friendship.

Given the focus here on personal love, Christian conceptions of God’s love for persons (and vice versa ) will be omitted, and the distinction between eros and philia will be blurred—as it typically is in contemporary accounts. Instead, the focus here will be on these contemporary understandings of love, including romantic love, understood as an attitude we take towards other persons. [ 2 ]

In providing an account of love, philosophical analyses must be careful to distinguish love from other positive attitudes we take towards persons, such as liking. Intuitively, love differs from such attitudes as liking in terms of its “depth,” and the problem is to elucidate the kind of “depth” we intuitively find love to have. Some analyses do this in part by providing thin conceptions of what liking amounts to. Thus, Singer (1991) and Brown (1987) understand liking to be a matter of desiring, an attitude that at best involves its object having only instrumental (and not intrinsic) value. Yet this seems inadequate: surely there are attitudes towards persons intermediate between having a desire with a person as its object and loving the person. I can care about a person for her own sake and not merely instrumentally, and yet such caring does not on its own amount to (non-deficiently) loving her, for it seems I can care about my dog in exactly the same way, a kind of caring which is insufficiently personal for love.

It is more common to distinguish loving from liking via the intuition that the “depth” of love is to be explained in terms of a notion of identification: to love someone is somehow to identify yourself with him, whereas no such notion of identification is involved in liking. As Nussbaum puts it, “The choice between one potential love and another can feel, and be, like a choice of a way of life, a decision to dedicate oneself to these values rather than these” (1990, p. 328); liking clearly does not have this sort of “depth” (see also Helm 2010; Bagley 2015). Whether love involves some kind of identification, and if so exactly how to understand such identification, is a central bone of contention among the various analyses of love. In particular, Whiting (2013) argues that the appeal to a notion of identification distorts our understanding of the sort of motivation love can provide, for taken literally it implies that love motivates through self -interest rather than through the beloved’s interests. Thus, Whiting argues, central to love is the possibility that love takes the lover “outside herself”, potentially forgetting herself in being moved directly by the interests of the beloved. (Of course, we need not take the notion of identification literally in this way: in identifying with one’s beloved, one might have a concern for one’s beloved that is analogous to one’s concern for oneself; see Helm 2010.)

Another common way to distinguish love from other personal attitudes is in terms of a distinctive kind of evaluation, which itself can account for love’s “depth.” Again, whether love essentially involves a distinctive kind of evaluation, and if so how to make sense of that evaluation, is hotly disputed. Closely related to questions of evaluation are questions of justification: can we justify loving or continuing to love a particular person, and if so, how? For those who think the justification of love is possible, it is common to understand such justification in terms of evaluation, and the answers here affect various accounts’ attempts to make sense of the kind of constancy or commitment love seems to involve, as well as the sense in which love is directed at particular individuals.

In what follows, theories of love are tentatively and hesitantly classified into four types: love as union, love as robust concern, love as valuing, and love as an emotion. It should be clear, however, that particular theories classified under one type sometimes also include, without contradiction, ideas central to other types. The types identified here overlap to some extent, and in some cases classifying particular theories may involve excessive pigeonholing. (Such cases are noted below.) Part of the classificatory problem is that many accounts of love are quasi-reductionistic, understanding love in terms of notions like affection, evaluation, attachment, etc., which themselves never get analyzed. Even when these accounts eschew explicitly reductionistic language, very often little attempt is made to show how one such “aspect” of love is conceptually connected to others. As a result, there is no clear and obvious way to classify particular theories, let alone identify what the relevant classes should be.

The union view claims that love consists in the formation of (or the desire to form) some significant kind of union, a “we.” A central task for union theorists, therefore, is to spell out just what such a “we” comes to—whether it is literally a new entity in the world somehow composed of the lover and the beloved, or whether it is merely metaphorical. Variants of this view perhaps go back to Aristotle (cf. Sherman 1993) and can also be found in Montaigne ([E]) and Hegel (1997); contemporary proponents include Solomon (1981, 1988), Scruton (1986), Nozick (1989), Fisher (1990), and Delaney (1996).

Scruton, writing in particular about romantic love, claims that love exists “just so soon as reciprocity becomes community: that is, just so soon as all distinction between my interests and your interests is overcome” (1986, p. 230). The idea is that the union is a union of concern, so that when I act out of that concern it is not for my sake alone or for your sake alone but for our sake. Fisher (1990) holds a similar, but somewhat more moderate view, claiming that love is a partial fusion of the lovers’ cares, concerns, emotional responses, and actions. What is striking about both Scruton and Fisher is the claim that love requires the actual union of the lovers’ concerns, for it thus becomes clear that they conceive of love not so much as an attitude we take towards another but as a relationship: the distinction between your interests and mine genuinely disappears only when we together come to have shared cares, concerns, etc., and my merely having a certain attitude towards you is not enough for love. This provides content to the notion of a “we” as the (metaphorical?) subject of these shared cares and concerns, and as that for whose sake we act.

Solomon (1988) offers a union view as well, though one that tries “to make new sense out of ‘love’ through a literal rather than metaphoric sense of the ‘fusion’ of two souls” (p. 24, cf. Solomon 1981; however, it is unclear exactly what he means by a “soul” here and so how love can be a “literal” fusion of two souls). What Solomon has in mind is the way in which, through love, the lovers redefine their identities as persons in terms of the relationship: “Love is the concentration and the intensive focus of mutual definition on a single individual, subjecting virtually every personal aspect of one’s self to this process” (1988, p. 197). The result is that lovers come to share the interests, roles, virtues, and so on that constitute what formerly was two individual identities but now has become a shared identity, and they do so in part by each allowing the other to play an important role in defining his own identity.

Nozick (1989) offers a union view that differs from those of Scruton, Fisher, and Solomon in that Nozick thinks that what is necessary for love is merely the desire to form a “we,” together with the desire that your beloved reciprocates. Nonetheless, he claims that this “we” is “a new entity in the world…created by a new web of relationships between [the lovers] which makes them no longer separate” (p. 70). In spelling out this web of relationships, Nozick appeals to the lovers “pooling” not only their well-beings, in the sense that the well-being of each is tied up with that of the other, but also their autonomy, in that “each transfers some previous rights to make certain decisions unilaterally into a joint pool” (p. 71). In addition, Nozick claims, the lovers each acquire a new identity as a part of the “we,” a new identity constituted by their (a) wanting to be perceived publicly as a couple, (b) their attending to their pooled well-being, and (c) their accepting a “certain kind of division of labor” (p. 72):

A person in a we might find himself coming across something interesting to read yet leaving it for the other person, not because he himself would not be interested in it but because the other would be more interested, and one of them reading it is sufficient for it to be registered by the wider identity now shared, the we . [ 3 ]

Opponents of the union view have seized on claims like this as excessive: union theorists, they claim, take too literally the ontological commitments of this notion of a “we.” This leads to two specific criticisms of the union view. The first is that union views do away with individual autonomy. Autonomy, it seems, involves a kind of independence on the part of the autonomous agent, such that she is in control over not only what she does but also who she is, as this is constituted by her interests, values, concerns, etc. However, union views, by doing away with a clear distinction between your interests and mine, thereby undermine this sort of independence and so undermine the autonomy of the lovers. If autonomy is a part of the individual’s good, then, on the union view, love is to this extent bad; so much the worse for the union view (Singer 1994; Soble 1997). Moreover, Singer (1994) argues that a necessary part of having your beloved be the object of your love is respect for your beloved as the particular person she is, and this requires respecting her autonomy.

Union theorists have responded to this objection in several ways. Nozick (1989) seems to think of a loss of autonomy in love as a desirable feature of the sort of union lovers can achieve. Fisher (1990), somewhat more reluctantly, claims that the loss of autonomy in love is an acceptable consequence of love. Yet without further argument these claims seem like mere bullet biting. Solomon (1988, pp. 64ff) describes this “tension” between union and autonomy as “the paradox of love.” However, this a view that Soble (1997) derides: merely to call it a paradox, as Solomon does, is not to face up to the problem.

The second criticism involves a substantive view concerning love. Part of what it is to love someone, these opponents say, is to have concern for him for his sake. However, union views make such concern unintelligible and eliminate the possibility of both selfishness and self-sacrifice, for by doing away with the distinction between my interests and your interests they have in effect turned your interests into mine and vice versa (Soble 1997; see also Blum 1980, 1993). Some advocates of union views see this as a point in their favor: we need to explain how it is I can have concern for people other than myself, and the union view apparently does this by understanding your interests to be part of my own. And Delaney, responding to an apparent tension between our desire to be loved unselfishly (for fear of otherwise being exploited) and our desire to be loved for reasons (which presumably are attractive to our lover and hence have a kind of selfish basis), says (1996, p. 346):

Given my view that the romantic ideal is primarily characterized by a desire to achieve a profound consolidation of needs and interests through the formation of a we , I do not think a little selfishness of the sort described should pose a worry to either party.

The objection, however, lies precisely in this attempt to explain my concern for my beloved egoistically. As Whiting (1991, p. 10) puts it, such an attempt “strikes me as unnecessary and potentially objectionable colonization”: in love, I ought to be concerned with my beloved for her sake, and not because I somehow get something out of it. (This can be true whether my concern with my beloved is merely instrumental to my good or whether it is partly constitutive of my good.)

Although Whiting’s and Soble’s criticisms here succeed against the more radical advocates of the union view, they in part fail to acknowledge the kernel of truth to be gleaned from the idea of union. Whiting’s way of formulating the second objection in terms of an unnecessary egoism in part points to a way out: we persons are in part social creatures, and love is one profound mode of that sociality. Indeed, part of the point of union accounts is to make sense of this social dimension: to make sense of a way in which we can sometimes identify ourselves with others not merely in becoming interdependent with them (as Singer 1994, p. 165, suggests, understanding ‘interdependence’ to be a kind of reciprocal benevolence and respect) but rather in making who we are as persons be constituted in part by those we love (cf., e.g., Rorty 1986/1993; Nussbaum 1990).

Along these lines, Friedman (1998), taking her inspiration in part from Delaney (1996), argues that we should understand the sort of union at issue in love to be a kind of federation of selves:

On the federation model, a third unified entity is constituted by the interaction of the lovers, one which involves the lovers acting in concert across a range of conditions and for a range of purposes. This concerted action, however, does not erase the existence of the two lovers as separable and separate agents with continuing possibilities for the exercise of their own respective agencies. [p. 165]

Given that on this view the lovers do not give up their individual identities, there is no principled reason why the union view cannot make sense of the lover’s concern for her beloved for his sake. [ 4 ] Moreover, Friedman argues, once we construe union as federation, we can see that autonomy is not a zero-sum game; rather, love can both directly enhance the autonomy of each and promote the growth of various skills, like realistic and critical self-evaluation, that foster autonomy.

Nonetheless, this federation model is not without its problems—problems that affect other versions of the union view as well. For if the federation (or the “we”, as on Nozick’s view) is understood as a third entity, we need a clearer account than has been given of its ontological status and how it comes to be. Relevant here is the literature on shared intention and plural subjects. Gilbert (1989, 1996, 2000) has argued that we should take quite seriously the existence of a plural subject as an entity over and above its constituent members. Others, such as Tuomela (1984, 1995), Searle (1990), and Bratman (1999) are more cautious, treating such talk of “us” having an intention as metaphorical.

As this criticism of the union view indicates, many find caring about your beloved for her sake to be a part of what it is to love her. The robust concern view of love takes this to be the central and defining feature of love (cf. Taylor 1976; Newton-Smith 1989; Soble 1990, 1997; LaFollette 1996; Frankfurt 1999; White 2001). As Taylor puts it:

To summarize: if x loves y then x wants to benefit and be with y etc., and he has these wants (or at least some of them) because he believes y has some determinate characteristics ψ in virtue of which he thinks it worth while to benefit and be with y . He regards satisfaction of these wants as an end and not as a means towards some other end. [p. 157]

In conceiving of my love for you as constituted by my concern for you for your sake, the robust concern view rejects the idea, central to the union view, that love is to be understood in terms of the (literal or metaphorical) creation of a “we”: I am the one who has this concern for you, though it is nonetheless disinterested and so not egoistic insofar as it is for your sake rather than for my own. [ 5 ]

At the heart of the robust concern view is the idea that love “is neither affective nor cognitive. It is volitional” (Frankfurt 1999, p. 129; see also Martin 2015). Frankfurt continues:

That a person cares about or that he loves something has less to do with how things make him feel, or with his opinions about them, than with the more or less stable motivational structures that shape his preferences and that guide and limit his conduct.

This account analyzes caring about someone for her sake as a matter of being motivated in certain ways, in part as a response to what happens to one’s beloved. Of course, to understand love in terms of desires is not to leave other emotional responses out in the cold, for these emotions should be understood as consequences of desires. Thus, just as I can be emotionally crushed when one of my strong desires is disappointed, so too I can be emotionally crushed when things similarly go badly for my beloved. In this way Frankfurt (1999) tacitly, and White (2001) more explicitly, acknowledge the way in which my caring for my beloved for her sake results in my identity being transformed through her influence insofar as I become vulnerable to things that happen to her.

Not all robust concern theorists seem to accept this line, however; in particular, Taylor (1976) and Soble (1990) seem to have a strongly individualistic conception of persons that prevents my identity being bound up with my beloved in this sort of way, a kind of view that may seem to undermine the intuitive “depth” that love seems to have. (For more on this point, see Rorty 1986/1993.) In the middle is Stump (2006), who follows Aquinas in understanding love to involve not only the desire for your beloved’s well-being but also a desire for a certain kind of relationship with your beloved—as a parent or spouse or sibling or priest or friend, for example—a relationship within which you share yourself with and connect yourself to your beloved. [ 6 ]

One source of worry about the robust concern view is that it involves too passive an understanding of one’s beloved (Ebels-Duggan 2008). The thought is that on the robust concern view the lover merely tries to discover what the beloved’s well-being consists in and then acts to promote that, potentially by thwarting the beloved’s own efforts when the lover thinks those efforts would harm her well-being. This, however, would be disrespectful and demeaning, not the sort of attitude that love is. What robust concern views seem to miss, Ebels-Duggan suggests, is the way love involves interacting agents, each with a capacity for autonomy the recognition and engagement with which is an essential part of love. In response, advocates of the robust concern view might point out that promoting someone’s well-being normally requires promoting her autonomy (though they may maintain that this need not always be true: that paternalism towards a beloved can sometimes be justified and appropriate as an expression of one’s love). Moreover, we might plausibly think, it is only through the exercise of one’s autonomy that one can define one’s own well-being as a person, so that a lover’s failure to respect the beloved’s autonomy would be a failure to promote her well-being and therefore not an expression of love, contrary to what Ebels-Duggan suggests. Consequently, it might seem, robust concern views can counter this objection by offering an enriched conception of what it is to be a person and so of the well-being of persons.

Another source of worry is that the robust concern view offers too thin a conception of love. By emphasizing robust concern, this view understands other features we think characteristic of love, such as one’s emotional responsiveness to one’s beloved, to be the effects of that concern rather than constituents of it. Thus Velleman (1999) argues that robust concern views, by understanding love merely as a matter of aiming at a particular end (viz., the welfare of one’s beloved), understand love to be merely conative. However, he claims, love can have nothing to do with desires, offering as a counterexample the possibility of loving a troublemaking relation whom you do not want to be with, whose well being you do not want to promote, etc. Similarly, Badhwar (2003) argues that such a “teleological” view of love makes it mysterious how “we can continue to love someone long after death has taken him beyond harm or benefit” (p. 46). Moreover Badhwar argues, if love is essentially a desire, then it implies that we lack something; yet love does not imply this and, indeed, can be felt most strongly at times when we feel our lives most complete and lacking in nothing. Consequently, Velleman and Badhwar conclude, love need not involve any desire or concern for the well-being of one’s beloved.

This conclusion, however, seems too hasty, for such examples can be accommodated within the robust concern view. Thus, the concern for your relative in Velleman’s example can be understood to be present but swamped by other, more powerful desires to avoid him. Indeed, keeping the idea that you want to some degree to benefit him, an idea Velleman rejects, seems to be essential to understanding the conceptual tension between loving someone and not wanting to help him, a tension Velleman does not fully acknowledge. Similarly, continued love for someone who has died can be understood on the robust concern view as parasitic on the former love you had for him when he was still alive: your desires to benefit him get transformed, through your subsequent understanding of the impossibility of doing so, into wishes. [ 7 ] Finally, the idea of concern for your beloved’s well-being need not imply the idea that you lack something, for such concern can be understood in terms of the disposition to be vigilant for occasions when you can come to his aid and consequently to have the relevant occurrent desires. All of this seems fully compatible with the robust concern view.

One might also question whether Velleman and Badhwar make proper use of their examples of loving your meddlesome relation or someone who has died. For although we can understand these as genuine cases of love, they are nonetheless deficient cases and ought therefore be understood as parasitic on the standard cases. Readily to accommodate such deficient cases of love into a philosophical analysis as being on a par with paradigm cases, and to do so without some special justification, is dubious.

Nonetheless, the robust concern view as it stands does not seem properly able to account for the intuitive “depth” of love and so does not seem properly to distinguish loving from liking. Although, as noted above, the robust concern view can begin to make some sense of the way in which the lover’s identity is altered by the beloved, it understands this only an effect of love, and not as a central part of what love consists in.

This vague thought is nicely developed by Wonderly (2017), who emphasizes that in addition to the sort of disinterested concern for another that is central to robust-concern accounts of love, an essential part of at least romantic love is the idea that in loving someone I must find them to be not merely important for their own sake but also important to me . Wonderly (2017) fleshes out what this “importance to me” involves in terms of the idea of attachment (developed in Wonderly 2016) that she argues can make sense of the intimacy and depth of love from within what remains fundamentally a robust-concern account. [ 8 ]

4. Love as Valuing

A third kind of view of love understands love to be a distinctive mode of valuing a person. As the distinction between eros and agape in Section 1 indicates, there are at least two ways to construe this in terms of whether the lover values the beloved because she is valuable, or whether the beloved comes to be valuable to the lover as a result of her loving him. The former view, which understands the lover as appraising the value of the beloved in loving him, is the topic of Section 4.1 , whereas the latter view, which understands her as bestowing value on him, will be discussed in Section 4.2 .

Velleman (1999, 2008) offers an appraisal view of love, understanding love to be fundamentally a matter of acknowledging and responding in a distinctive way to the value of the beloved. (For a very different appraisal view of love, see Kolodny 2003.) Understanding this more fully requires understanding both the kind of value of the beloved to which one responds and the distinctive kind of response to such value that love is. Nonetheless, it should be clear that what makes an account be an appraisal view of love is not the mere fact that love is understood to involve appraisal; many other accounts do so, and it is typical of robust concern accounts, for example (cf. the quote from Taylor above , Section 3 ). Rather, appraisal views are distinctive in understanding love to consist in that appraisal.

In articulating the kind of value love involves, Velleman, following Kant, distinguishes dignity from price. To have a price , as the economic metaphor suggests, is to have a value that can be compared to the value of other things with prices, such that it is intelligible to exchange without loss items of the same value. By contrast, to have dignity is to have a value such that comparisons of relative value become meaningless. Material goods are normally understood to have prices, but we persons have dignity: no substitution of one person for another can preserve exactly the same value, for something of incomparable worth would be lost (and gained) in such a substitution.

On this Kantian view, our dignity as persons consists in our rational nature: our capacity both to be actuated by reasons that we autonomously provide ourselves in setting our own ends and to respond appropriately to the intrinsic values we discover in the world. Consequently, one important way in which we exercise our rational natures is to respond with respect to the dignity of other persons (a dignity that consists in part in their capacity for respect): respect just is the required minimal response to the dignity of persons. What makes a response to a person be that of respect, Velleman claims, still following Kant, is that it “arrests our self-love” and thereby prevents us from treating him as a means to our ends (p. 360).

Given this, Velleman claims that love is similarly a response to the dignity of persons, and as such it is the dignity of the object of our love that justifies that love. However, love and respect are different kinds of responses to the same value. For love arrests not our self-love but rather

our tendencies toward emotional self-protection from another person, tendencies to draw ourselves in and close ourselves off from being affected by him. Love disarms our emotional defenses; it makes us vulnerable to the other. [1999, p. 361]

This means that the concern, attraction, sympathy, etc. that we normally associate with love are not constituents of love but are rather its normal effects, and love can remain without them (as in the case of the love for a meddlesome relative one cannot stand being around). Moreover, this provides Velleman with a clear account of the intuitive “depth” of love: it is essentially a response to persons as such, and to say that you love your dog is therefore to be confused.

Of course, we do not respond with love to the dignity of every person we meet, nor are we somehow required to: love, as the disarming of our emotional defenses in a way that makes us especially vulnerable to another, is the optional maximal response to others’ dignity. What, then, explains the selectivity of love—why I love some people and not others? The answer lies in the contingent fit between the way some people behaviorally express their dignity as persons and the way I happen to respond to those expressions by becoming emotionally vulnerable to them. The right sort of fit makes someone “lovable” by me (1999, p. 372), and my responding with love in these cases is a matter of my “really seeing” this person in a way that I fail to do with others who do not fit with me in this way. By ‘lovable’ here Velleman seems to mean able to be loved, not worthy of being loved, for nothing Velleman says here speaks to a question about the justification of my loving this person rather than that. Rather, what he offers is an explanation of the selectivity of my love, an explanation that as a matter of fact makes my response be that of love rather than mere respect.

This understanding of the selectivity of love as something that can be explained but not justified is potentially troubling. For we ordinarily think we can justify not only my loving you rather than someone else but also and more importantly the constancy of my love: my continuing to love you even as you change in certain fundamental ways (but not others). As Delaney (1996, p. 347) puts the worry about constancy:

while you seem to want it to be true that, were you to become a schmuck, your lover would continue to love you,…you also want it to be the case that your lover would never love a schmuck.

The issue here is not merely that we can offer explanations of the selectivity of my love, of why I do not love schmucks; rather, at issue is the discernment of love, of loving and continuing to love for good reasons as well as of ceasing to love for good reasons. To have these good reasons seems to involve attributing different values to you now rather than formerly or rather than to someone else, yet this is precisely what Velleman denies is the case in making the distinction between love and respect the way he does.

It is also questionable whether Velleman can even explain the selectivity of love in terms of the “fit” between your expressions and my sensitivities. For the relevant sensitivities on my part are emotional sensitivities: the lowering of my emotional defenses and so becoming emotionally vulnerable to you. Thus, I become vulnerable to the harms (or goods) that befall you and so sympathetically feel your pain (or joy). Such emotions are themselves assessable for warrant, and now we can ask why my disappointment that you lost the race is warranted, but my being disappointed that a mere stranger lost would not be warranted. The intuitive answer is that I love you but not him. However, this answer is unavailable to Velleman, because he thinks that what makes my response to your dignity that of love rather than respect is precisely that I feel such emotions, and to appeal to my love in explaining the emotions therefore seems viciously circular.

Although these problems are specific to Velleman’s account, the difficulty can be generalized to any appraisal account of love (such as that offered in Kolodny 2003). For if love is an appraisal, it needs to be distinguished from other forms of appraisal, including our evaluative judgments. On the one hand, to try to distinguish love as an appraisal from other appraisals in terms of love’s having certain effects on our emotional and motivational life (as on Velleman’s account) is unsatisfying because it ignores part of what needs to be explained: why the appraisal of love has these effects and yet judgments with the same evaluative content do not. Indeed, this question is crucial if we are to understand the intuitive “depth” of love, for without an answer to this question we do not understand why love should have the kind of centrality in our lives it manifestly does. [ 9 ] On the other hand, to bundle this emotional component into the appraisal itself would be to turn the view into either the robust concern view ( Section 3 ) or a variant of the emotion view ( Section 5.1 ).

In contrast to Velleman, Singer (1991, 1994, 2009) understands love to be fundamentally a matter of bestowing value on the beloved. To bestow value on another is to project a kind of intrinsic value onto him. Indeed, this fact about love is supposed to distinguish love from liking: “Love is an attitude with no clear objective,” whereas liking is inherently teleological (1991, p. 272). As such, there are no standards of correctness for bestowing such value, and this is how love differs from other personal attitudes like gratitude, generosity, and condescension: “love…confers importance no matter what the object is worth” (p. 273). Consequently, Singer thinks, love is not an attitude that can be justified in any way.

What is it, exactly, to bestow this kind of value on someone? It is, Singer says, a kind of attachment and commitment to the beloved, in which one comes to treat him as an end in himself and so to respond to his ends, interests, concerns, etc. as having value for their own sake. This means in part that the bestowal of value reveals itself “by caring about the needs and interests of the beloved, by wishing to benefit or protect her, by delighting in her achievements,” etc. (p. 270). This sounds very much like the robust concern view, yet the bestowal view differs in understanding such robust concern to be the effect of the bestowal of value that is love rather than itself what constitutes love: in bestowing value on my beloved, I make him be valuable in such a way that I ought to respond with robust concern.

For it to be intelligible that I have bestowed value on someone, I must therefore respond appropriately to him as valuable, and this requires having some sense of what his well-being is and of what affects that well-being positively or negatively. Yet having this sense requires in turn knowing what his strengths and deficiencies are, and this is a matter of appraising him in various ways. Bestowal thus presupposes a kind of appraisal, as a way of “really seeing” the beloved and attending to him. Nonetheless, Singer claims, it is the bestowal that is primary for understanding what love consists in: the appraisal is required only so that the commitment to one’s beloved and his value as thus bestowed has practical import and is not “a blind submission to some unknown being” (1991, p. 272; see also Singer 1994, pp. 139ff).

Singer is walking a tightrope in trying to make room for appraisal in his account of love. Insofar as the account is fundamentally a bestowal account, Singer claims that love cannot be justified, that we bestow the relevant kind of value “gratuitously.” This suggests that love is blind, that it does not matter what our beloved is like, which seems patently false. Singer tries to avoid this conclusion by appealing to the role of appraisal: it is only because we appraise another as having certain virtues and vices that we come to bestow value on him. Yet the “because” here, since it cannot justify the bestowal, is at best a kind of contingent causal explanation. [ 10 ] In this respect, Singer’s account of the selectivity of love is much the same as Velleman’s, and it is liable to the same criticism: it makes unintelligible the way in which our love can be discerning for better or worse reasons. Indeed, this failure to make sense of the idea that love can be justified is a problem for any bestowal view. For either (a) a bestowal itself cannot be justified (as on Singer’s account), in which case the justification of love is impossible, or (b) a bestowal can be justified, in which case it is hard to make sense of value as being bestowed rather than there antecedently in the object as the grounds of that “bestowal.”

More generally, a proponent of the bestowal view needs to be much clearer than Singer is in articulating precisely what a bestowal is. What is the value that I create in a bestowal, and how can my bestowal create it? On a crude Humean view, the answer might be that the value is something projected onto the world through my pro-attitudes, like desire. Yet such a view would be inadequate, since the projected value, being relative to a particular individual, would do no theoretical work, and the account would essentially be a variant of the robust concern view. Moreover, in providing a bestowal account of love, care is needed to distinguish love from other personal attitudes such as admiration and respect: do these other attitudes involve bestowal? If so, how does the bestowal in these cases differ from the bestowal of love? If not, why not, and what is so special about love that requires a fundamentally different evaluative attitude than admiration and respect?

Nonetheless, there is a kernel of truth in the bestowal view: there is surely something right about the idea that love is creative and not merely a response to antecedent value, and accounts of love that understand the kind of evaluation implicit in love merely in terms of appraisal seem to be missing something. Precisely what may be missed will be discussed below in Section 6 .

Perhaps there is room for an understanding of love and its relation to value that is intermediate between appraisal and bestowal accounts. After all, if we think of appraisal as something like perception, a matter of responding to what is out there in the world, and of bestowal as something like action, a matter of doing something and creating something, we should recognize that the responsiveness central to appraisal may itself depend on our active, creative choices. Thus, just as we must recognize that ordinary perception depends on our actively directing our attention and deploying concepts, interpretations, and even arguments in order to perceive things accurately, so too we might think our vision of our beloved’s valuable properties that is love also depends on our actively attending to and interpreting him. Something like this is Jollimore’s view (2011). According to Jollimore, in loving someone we actively attend to his valuable properties in a way that we take to provide us with reasons to treat him preferentially. Although we may acknowledge that others might have such properties even to a greater degree than our beloved does, we do not attend to and appreciate such properties in others in the same way we do those in our beloveds; indeed, we find our appreciation of our beloved’s valuable properties to “silence” our similar appreciation of those in others. (In this way, Jollimore thinks, we can solve the problem of fungibility, discussed below in Section 6 .) Likewise, in perceiving our beloved’s actions and character, we do so through the lens of such an appreciation, which will tend as to “silence” interpretations inconsistent with that appreciation. In this way, love involves finding one’s beloved to be valuable in a way that involves elements of both appraisal (insofar as one must thereby be responsive to valuable properties one’s beloved really has) and bestowal (insofar as through one’s attention and committed appreciation of these properties they come to have special significance for one).

One might object that this conception of love as silencing the special value of others or to negative interpretations of our beloveds is irrational in a way that love is not. For, it might seem, such “silencing” is merely a matter of our blinding ourselves to how things really are. Yet Jollimore claims that this sense in which love is blind is not objectionable, for (a) we can still intellectually recognize the things that love’s vision silences, and (b) there really is no impartial perspective we can take on the values things have, and love is one appropriate sort of partial perspective from which the value of persons can be manifest. Nonetheless, one might wonder about whether that perspective of love itself can be distorted and what the norms are in terms of which such distortions are intelligible. Furthermore, it may seem that Jollimore’s attempt to reconcile appraisal and bestowal fails to appreciate the underlying metaphysical difficulty: appraisal is a response to value that is antecedently there, whereas bestowal is the creation of value that was not antecedently there. Consequently, it might seem, appraisal and bestowal are mutually exclusive and cannot be reconciled in the way Jollimore hopes.

Whereas Jollimore tries to combine separate elements of appraisal and of bestowal in a single account, Helm (2010) and Bagley (2015) offer accounts that reject the metaphysical presupposition that values must be either prior to love (as with appraisal) or posterior to love (as with bestowal), instead understanding the love and the values to emerge simultaneously. Thus, Helm presents a detailed account of valuing in terms of the emotions, arguing that while we can understand individual emotions as appraisals , responding to values already their in their objects, these values are bestowed on those objects via broad, holistic patterns of emotions. How this amounts to an account of love will be discussed in Section 5.2 , below. Bagley (2015) instead appeals to a metaphor of improvisation, arguing that just as jazz musicians jointly make determinate the content of their musical ideas through on-going processes of their expression, so too lovers jointly engage in “deep improvisation”, thereby working out of their values and identities through the on-going process of living their lives together. These values are thus something the lovers jointly construct through the process of recognizing and responding to those very values. To love someone is thus to engage with them as partners in such “deep improvisation”. (This account is similar to Helm (2008, 2010)’s account of plural agency, which he uses to provide an account of friendship and other loving relationships; see the discussion of shared activity in the entry on friendship .)

5. Emotion Views

Given these problems with the accounts of love as valuing, perhaps we should turn to the emotions. For emotions just are responses to objects that combine evaluation, motivation, and a kind of phenomenology, all central features of the attitude of love.

Many accounts of love claim that it is an emotion; these include: Wollheim 1984, Rorty 1986/1993, Brown 1987, Hamlyn 1989, Baier 1991, and Badhwar 2003. [ 11 ] Thus, Hamlyn (1989, p. 219) says:

It would not be a plausible move to defend any theory of the emotions to which love and hate seemed exceptions by saying that love and hate are after all not emotions. I have heard this said, but it does seem to me a desperate move to make. If love and hate are not emotions what is?

The difficulty with this claim, as Rorty (1980) argues, is that the word, ‘emotion,’ does not seem to pick out a homogeneous collection of mental states, and so various theories claiming that love is an emotion mean very different things. Consequently, what are here labeled “emotion views” are divided into those that understand love to be a particular kind of evaluative-cum-motivational response to an object, whether that response is merely occurrent or dispositional (‘emotions proper,’ see Section 5.1 , below), and those that understand love to involve a collection of related and interconnected emotions proper (‘emotion complexes,’ see Section 5.2 , below).

An emotion proper is a kind of “evaluative-cum-motivational response to an object”; what does this mean? Emotions are generally understood to have several objects. The target of an emotion is that at which the emotion is directed: if I am afraid or angry at you, then you are the target. In responding to you with fear or anger, I am implicitly evaluating you in a particular way, and this evaluation—called the formal object —is the kind of evaluation of the target that is distinctive of a particular emotion type. Thus, in fearing you, I implicitly evaluate you as somehow dangerous, whereas in being angry at you I implicitly evaluate you as somehow offensive. Yet emotions are not merely evaluations of their targets; they in part motivate us to behave in certain ways, both rationally (by motivating action to avoid the danger) and arationally (via certain characteristic expressions, such as slamming a door out of anger). Moreover, emotions are generally understood to involve a phenomenological component, though just how to understand the characteristic “feel” of an emotion and its relation to the evaluation and motivation is hotly disputed. Finally, emotions are typically understood to be passions: responses that we feel imposed on us as if from the outside, rather than anything we actively do. (For more on the philosophy of emotions, see entry on emotion .)

What then are we saying when we say that love is an emotion proper? According to Brown (1987, p. 14), emotions as occurrent mental states are “abnormal bodily changes caused by the agent’s evaluation or appraisal of some object or situation that the agent believes to be of concern to him or her.” He spells this out by saying that in love, we “cherish” the person for having “a particular complex of instantiated qualities” that is “open-ended” so that we can continue to love the person even as she changes over time (pp. 106–7). These qualities, which include historical and relational qualities, are evaluated in love as worthwhile. [ 12 ] All of this seems aimed at spelling out what love’s formal object is, a task that is fundamental to understanding love as an emotion proper. Thus, Brown seems to say that love’s formal object is just being worthwhile (or, given his examples, perhaps: worthwhile as a person), and he resists being any more specific than this in order to preserve the open-endedness of love. Hamlyn (1989) offers a similar account, saying (p. 228):

With love the difficulty is to find anything of this kind [i.e., a formal object] which is uniquely appropriate to love. My thesis is that there is nothing of this kind that must be so, and that this differentiates it and hate from the other emotions.

Hamlyn goes on to suggest that love and hate might be primordial emotions, a kind of positive or negative “feeling towards,” presupposed by all other emotions. [ 13 ]

The trouble with these accounts of love as an emotion proper is that they provide too thin a conception of love. In Hamlyn’s case, love is conceived as a fairly generic pro-attitude, rather than as the specific kind of distinctively personal attitude discussed here. In Brown’s case, spelling out the formal object of love as simply being worthwhile (as a person) fails to distinguish love from other evaluative responses like admiration and respect. Part of the problem seems to be the rather simple account of what an emotion is that Brown and Hamlyn use as their starting point: if love is an emotion, then the understanding of what an emotion is must be enriched considerably to accommodate love. Yet it is not at all clear whether the idea of an “emotion proper” can be adequately enriched so as to do so. As Pismenny & Prinz (2017) point out, love seems to be too varied both in its ground and in the sort of experience it involves to be capturable by a single emotion.

The emotion complex view, which understands love to be a complex emotional attitude towards another person, may initially seem to hold out great promise to overcome the problems of alternative types of views. By articulating the emotional interconnections between persons, it could offer a satisfying account of the “depth” of love without the excesses of the union view and without the overly narrow teleological focus of the robust concern view; and because these emotional interconnections are themselves evaluations, it could offer an understanding of love as simultaneously evaluative, without needing to specify a single formal object of love. However, the devil is in the details.

Rorty (1986/1993) does not try to present a complete account of love; rather, she focuses on the idea that “relational psychological attitudes” which, like love, essentially involve emotional and desiderative responses, exhibit historicity : “they arise from, and are shaped by, dynamic interactions between a subject and an object” (p. 73). In part this means that what makes an attitude be one of love is not the presence of a state that we can point to at a particular time within the lover; rather, love is to be “identified by a characteristic narrative history” (p. 75). Moreover, Rorty argues, the historicity of love involves the lover’s being permanently transformed by loving who he does.

Baier (1991), seeming to pick up on this understanding of love as exhibiting historicity, says (p. 444):

Love is not just an emotion people feel toward other people, but also a complex tying together of the emotions that two or a few more people have; it is a special form of emotional interdependence.

To a certain extent, such emotional interdependence involves feeling sympathetic emotions, so that, for example, I feel disappointed and frustrated on behalf of my beloved when she fails, and joyful when she succeeds. However, Baier insists, love is “more than just the duplication of the emotion of each in a sympathetic echo in the other” (p. 442); the emotional interdependence of the lovers involves also appropriate follow-up responses to the emotional predicaments of your beloved. Two examples Baier gives (pp. 443–44) are a feeling of “mischievous delight” at your beloved’s temporary bafflement, and amusement at her embarrassment. The idea is that in a loving relationship your beloved gives you permission to feel such emotions when no one else is permitted to do so, and a condition of her granting you that permission is that you feel these emotions “tenderly.” Moreover, you ought to respond emotionally to your beloved’s emotional responses to you: by feeling hurt when she is indifferent to you, for example. All of these foster the sort of emotional interdependence Baier is after—a kind of intimacy you have with your beloved.

Badhwar (2003, p. 46) similarly understands love to be a matter of “one’s overall emotional orientation towards a person—the complex of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings”; as such, love is a matter of having a certain “character structure.” Central to this complex emotional orientation, Badhwar thinks, is what she calls the “look of love”: “an ongoing [emotional] affirmation of the loved object as worthy of existence…for her own sake” (p. 44), an affirmation that involves taking pleasure in your beloved’s well-being. Moreover, Badhwar claims, the look of love also provides to the beloved reliable testimony concerning the quality of the beloved’s character and actions (p. 57).

There is surely something very right about the idea that love, as an attitude central to deeply personal relationships, should not be understood as a state that can simply come and go. Rather, as the emotion complex view insists, the complexity of love is to be found in the historical patterns of one’s emotional responsiveness to one’s beloved—a pattern that also projects into the future. Indeed, as suggested above, the kind of emotional interdependence that results from this complex pattern can seem to account for the intuitive “depth” of love as fully interwoven into one’s emotional sense of oneself. And it seems to make some headway in understanding the complex phenomenology of love: love can at times be a matter of intense pleasure in the presence of one’s beloved, yet it can at other times involve frustration, exasperation, anger, and hurt as a manifestation of the complexities and depth of the relationships it fosters.

This understanding of love as constituted by a history of emotional interdependence enables emotion complex views to say something interesting about the impact love has on the lover’s identity. This is partly Rorty’s point (1986/1993) in her discussion of the historicity of love ( above ). Thus, she argues, one important feature of such historicity is that love is “ dynamically permeable ” in that the lover is continually “changed by loving” such that these changes “tend to ramify through a person’s character” (p. 77). Through such dynamic permeability, love transforms the identity of the lover in a way that can sometimes foster the continuity of the love, as each lover continually changes in response to the changes in the other. [ 14 ] Indeed, Rorty concludes, love should be understood in terms of “a characteristic narrative history” (p. 75) that results from such dynamic permeability. It should be clear, however, that the mere fact of dynamic permeability need not result in the love’s continuing: nothing about the dynamics of a relationship requires that the characteristic narrative history project into the future, and such permeability can therefore lead to the dissolution of the love. Love is therefore risky—indeed, all the more risky because of the way the identity of the lover is defined in part through the love. The loss of a love can therefore make one feel no longer oneself in ways poignantly described by Nussbaum (1990).

By focusing on such emotionally complex histories, emotion complex views differ from most alternative accounts of love. For alternative accounts tend to view love as a kind of attitude we take toward our beloveds, something we can analyze simply in terms of our mental state at the moment. [ 15 ] By ignoring this historical dimension of love in providing an account of what love is, alternative accounts have a hard time providing either satisfying accounts of the sense in which our identities as person are at stake in loving another or satisfactory solutions to problems concerning how love is to be justified (cf. Section 6 , especially the discussion of fungibility ).

Nonetheless, some questions remain. If love is to be understood as an emotion complex, we need a much more explicit account of the pattern at issue here: what ties all of these emotional responses together into a single thing, namely love? Baier and Badhwar seem content to provide interesting and insightful examples of this pattern, but that does not seem to be enough. For example, what connects my amusement at my beloved’s embarrassment to other emotions like my joy on his behalf when he succeeds? Why shouldn’t my amusement at his embarrassment be understood instead as a somewhat cruel case of schadenfreude and so as antithetical to, and disconnected from, love? Moreover, as Naar (2013) notes, we need a principled account of when such historical patterns are disrupted in such a way as to end the love and when they are not. Do I stop loving when, in the midst of clinical depression, I lose my normal pattern of emotional concern?

Presumably the answer requires returning to the historicity of love: it all depends on the historical details of the relationship my beloved and I have forged. Some loves develop so that the intimacy within the relationship is such as to allow for tender, teasing responses to each other, whereas other loves may not. The historical details, together with the lovers’ understanding of their relationship, presumably determine which emotional responses belong to the pattern constitutive of love and which do not. However, this answer so far is inadequate: not just any historical relationship involving emotional interdependence is a loving relationship, and we need a principled way of distinguishing loving relationships from other relational evaluative attitudes: precisely what is the characteristic narrative history that is characteristic of love?

Helm (2009, 2010) tries to answer some of these questions in presenting an account of love as intimate identification. To love another, Helm claims, is to care about him as the particular person he is and so, other things being equal, to value the things he values. Insofar as a person’s (structured) set of values—his sense of the kind of life worth his living—constitutes his identity as a person, such sharing of values amounts to sharing his identity, which sounds very much like union accounts of love. However, Helm is careful to understand such sharing of values as for the sake of the beloved (as robust concern accounts insist), and he spells this all out in terms of patterns of emotions. Thus, Helm claims, all emotions have not only a target and a formal object (as indicated above), but also a focus : a background object the subject cares about in terms of which the implicit evaluation of the target is made intelligible. (For example, if I am afraid of the approaching hailstorm, I thereby evaluate it as dangerous, and what explains this evaluation is the way that hailstorm bears on my vegetable garden, which I care about; my garden, therefore, is the focus of my fear.) Moreover, emotions normally come in patterns with a common focus: fearing the hailstorm is normally connected to other emotions as being relieved when it passes by harmlessly (or disappointed or sad when it does not), being angry at the rabbits for killing the spinach, delighted at the productivity of the tomato plants, etc. Helm argues that a projectible pattern of such emotions with a common focus constitute caring about that focus. Consequently, we might say along the lines of Section 4.3 , while particular emotions appraise events in the world as having certain evaluative properties, their having these properties is partly bestowed on them by the overall patterns of emotions.

Helm identifies some emotions as person-focused emotions : emotions like pride and shame that essentially take persons as their focuses, for these emotions implicitly evaluate in terms of the target’s bearing on the quality of life of the person that is their focus. To exhibit a pattern of such emotions focused on oneself and subfocused on being a mother, for example, is to care about the place being a mother has in the kind of life you find worth living—in your identity as a person; to care in this way is to value being a mother as a part of your concern for your own identity. Likewise, to exhibit a projectible pattern of such emotions focused on someone else and subfocused on his being a father is to value this as a part of your concern for his identity—to value it for his sake. Such sharing of another’s values for his sake, which, Helm argues, essentially involves trust, respect, and affection, amounts to intimate identification with him, and such intimate identification just is love. Thus, Helm tries to provide an account of love that is grounded in an explicit account of caring (and caring about something for the sake of someone else) that makes room for the intuitive “depth” of love through intimate identification.

Jaworska & Wonderly (2017) argue that Helm’s construal of intimacy as intimate identification is too demanding. Rather, they argue, the sort of intimacy that distinguishes love from mere caring is one that involves a kind of emotional vulnerability in which things going well or poorly for one’s beloved are directly connected not merely to one’s well-being, but to one’s ability to flourish. This connection, they argue, runs through the lover’s self-understanding and the place the beloved has in the lover’s sense of a meaningful life.

Why do we love? It has been suggested above that any account of love needs to be able to answer some such justificatory question. Although the issue of the justification of love is important on its own, it is also important for the implications it has for understanding more clearly the precise object of love: how can we make sense of the intuitions not only that we love the individuals themselves rather than their properties, but also that my beloved is not fungible—that no one could simply take her place without loss. Different theories approach these questions in different ways, but, as will become clear below, the question of justification is primary.

One way to understand the question of why we love is as asking for what the value of love is: what do we get out of it? One kind of answer, which has its roots in Aristotle, is that having loving relationships promotes self-knowledge insofar as your beloved acts as a kind of mirror, reflecting your character back to you (Badhwar, 2003, p. 58). Of course, this answer presupposes that we cannot accurately know ourselves in other ways: that left alone, our sense of ourselves will be too imperfect, too biased, to help us grow and mature as persons. The metaphor of a mirror also suggests that our beloveds will be in the relevant respects similar to us, so that merely by observing them, we can come to know ourselves better in a way that is, if not free from bias, at least more objective than otherwise.

Brink (1999, pp. 264–65) argues that there are serious limits to the value of such mirroring of one’s self in a beloved. For if the aim is not just to know yourself better but to improve yourself, you ought also to interact with others who are not just like yourself: interacting with such diverse others can help you recognize alternative possibilities for how to live and so better assess the relative merits of these possibilities. Whiting (2013) also emphasizes the importance of our beloveds’ having an independent voice capable of reflecting not who one now is but an ideal for who one is to be. Nonetheless, we need not take the metaphor of the mirror quite so literally; rather, our beloveds can reflect our selves not through their inherent similarity to us but rather through the interpretations they offer of us, both explicitly and implicitly in their responses to us. This is what Badhwar calls the “epistemic significance” of love. [ 16 ]

In addition to this epistemic significance of love, LaFollette (1996, Chapter 5) offers several other reasons why it is good to love, reasons derived in part from the psychological literature on love: love increases our sense of well-being, it elevates our sense of self-worth, and it serves to develop our character. It also, we might add, tends to lower stress and blood pressure and to increase health and longevity. Friedman (1993) argues that the kind of partiality towards our beloveds that love involves is itself morally valuable because it supports relationships—loving relationships—that contribute “to human well-being, integrity, and fulfillment in life” (p. 61). And Solomon (1988, p. 155) claims:

Ultimately, there is only one reason for love. That one grand reason…is “because we bring out the best in each other.” What counts as “the best,” of course, is subject to much individual variation.

This is because, Solomon suggests, in loving someone, I want myself to be better so as to be worthy of his love for me.

Each of these answers to the question of why we love understands it to be asking about love quite generally, abstracted away from details of particular relationships. It is also possible to understand the question as asking about particular loves. Here, there are several questions that are relevant:

• What, if anything, justifies my loving rather than not loving this particular person?
• What, if anything, justifies my coming to love this particular person rather than someone else?
• What, if anything, justifies my continuing to love this particular person given the changes—both in him and me and in the overall circumstances—that have occurred since I began loving him?

These are importantly different questions. Velleman (1999), for example, thinks we can answer (1) by appealing to the fact that my beloved is a person and so has a rational nature, yet he thinks (2) and (3) have no answers: the best we can do is offer causal explanations for our loving particular people, a position echoed by Han (2021). Setiya (2014) similarly thinks (1) has an answer, but points not to the rational nature of persons but rather to the other’s humanity , where such humanity differs from personhood in that not all humans need have the requisite rational nature for personhood, and not all persons need be humans. And, as will become clear below , the distinction between (2) and (3) will become important in resolving puzzles concerning whether our beloveds are fungible, though it should be clear that (3) potentially raises questions concerning personal identity (which will not be addressed here).

It is important not to misconstrue these justificatory questions. Thomas (1991) , for example, rejects the idea that love can be justified: “there are no rational considerations whereby anyone can lay claim to another’s love or insist that an individual’s love for another is irrational” (p. 474). This is because, Thomas claims (p. 471):

no matter how wonderful and lovely an individual might be, on any and all accounts, it is simply false that a romantically unencumbered person must love that individual on pain of being irrational. Or, there is no irrationality involved in ceasing to love a person whom one once loved immensely, although the person has not changed.

However, as LaFollette (1996, p. 63) correctly points out,

reason is not some external power which dictates how we should behave, but an internal power, integral to who we are.… Reason does not command that we love anyone. Nonetheless, reason is vital in determining whom we love and why we love them.

That is, reasons for love are pro tanto : they are a part of the overall reasons we have for acting, and it is up to us in exercising our capacity for agency to decide what on balance we have reason to do or even whether we shall act contrary to our reasons. To construe the notion of a reason for love as compelling us to love, as Thomas does, is to misconstrue the place such reasons have within our agency. [ 17 ]

Most philosophical discussions of the justification of love focus on question (1) , thinking that answering this question will also, to the extent that we can, answer question (2) , which is typically not distinguished from (3) . The answers given to these questions vary in a way that turns on how the kind of evaluation implicit in love is construed. On the one hand, those who understand the evaluation implicit in love to be a matter of the bestowal of value (such as Telfer 1970–71; Friedman 1993; Singer 1994) typically claim that no justification can be given (cf. Section 4.2 ). As indicated above, this seems problematic, especially given the importance love can have both in our lives and, especially, in shaping our identities as persons. To reject the idea that we can love for reasons may reduce the impact our agency can have in defining who we are.

On the other hand, those who understand the evaluation implicit in love to be a matter of appraisal tend to answer the justificatory question by appeal to these valuable properties of the beloved. This acceptance of the idea that love can be justified leads to two further, related worries about the object of love.

The first worry is raised by Vlastos (1981) in a discussion Plato’s and Aristotle’s accounts of love. Vlastos notes that these accounts focus on the properties of our beloveds: we are to love people, they say, only because and insofar as they are objectifications of the excellences. Consequently, he argues, in doing so they fail to distinguish “ disinterested affection for the person we love” from “ appreciation of the excellences instantiated by that person ” (p. 33). That is, Vlastos thinks that Plato and Aristotle provide an account of love that is really a love of properties rather than a love of persons—love of a type of person, rather than love of a particular person—thereby losing what is distinctive about love as an essentially personal attitude. This worry about Plato and Aristotle might seem to apply just as well to other accounts that justify love in terms of the properties of the person: insofar as we love the person for the sake of her properties, it might seem that what we love is those properties and not the person. Here it is surely insufficient to say, as Solomon (1988, p. 154) does, “if love has its reasons, then it is not the whole person that one loves but certain aspects of that person—though the rest of the person comes along too, of course”: that final tagline fails to address the central difficulty about what the object of love is and so about love as a distinctly personal attitude. (Clausen 2019 might seem to address this worry by arguing that we love people not as having certain properties but rather as having “ organic unities ”: a holistic set of properties the value of each of which must be understood in essential part in terms of its place within that whole. Nonetheless, while this is an interesting and plausible way to think about the value of the properties of persons, that organic unity itself will be a (holistic) property held by the person, and it seems that the fundamental problem reemerges at the level of this holistic property: do we love the holistic unity rather than the person?)

The second worry concerns the fungibility of the object of love. To be fungible is to be replaceable by another relevantly similar object without any loss of value. Thus, money is fungible: I can give you two $5 bills in exchange for a $10 bill, and neither of us has lost anything. Is the object of love fungible? That is, can I simply switch from loving one person to loving another relevantly similar person without any loss? The worry about fungibility is commonly put this way: if we accept that love can be justified by appealing to properties of the beloved, then it may seem that in loving someone for certain reasons, I love him not simply as the individual he is, but as instantiating those properties. And this may imply that any other person instantiating those same properties would do just as well: my beloved would be fungible. Indeed, it may be that another person exhibits the properties that ground my love to a greater degree than my current beloved does, and so it may seem that in such a case I have reason to “trade up”—to switch my love to the new, better person. However, it seems clear that the objects of our loves are not fungible: love seems to involve a deeply personal commitment to a particular person, a commitment that is antithetical to the idea that our beloveds are fungible or to the idea that we ought to be willing to trade up when possible. [ 18 ]

In responding to these worries, Nozick (1989) appeals to the union view of love he endorses (see the section on Love as Union ):

The intention in love is to form a we and to identify with it as an extended self, to identify one’s fortunes in large part with its fortunes. A willingness to trade up, to destroy the very we you largely identify with, would then be a willingness to destroy your self in the form of your own extended self. [p. 78]

So it is because love involves forming a “we” that we must understand other persons and not properties to be the objects of love, and it is because my very identity as a person depends essentially on that “we” that it is not possible to substitute without loss one object of my love for another. However, Badhwar (2003) criticizes Nozick, saying that his response implies that once I love someone, I cannot abandon that love no matter who that person becomes; this, she says, “cannot be understood as love at all rather than addiction” (p. 61). [ 19 ]

Instead, Badhwar (1987) turns to her robust-concern account of love as a concern for the beloved for his sake rather than one’s own. Insofar as my love is disinterested — not a means to antecedent ends of my own—it would be senseless to think that my beloved could be replaced by someone who is able to satisfy my ends equally well or better. Consequently, my beloved is in this way irreplaceable. However, this is only a partial response to the worry about fungibility, as Badhwar herself seems to acknowledge. For the concern over fungibility arises not merely for those cases in which we think of love as justified instrumentally, but also for those cases in which the love is justified by the intrinsic value of the properties of my beloved. Confronted with cases like this, Badhwar (2003) concludes that the object of love is fungible after all (though she insists that it is very unlikely in practice). (Soble (1990, Chapter 13) draws similar conclusions.)

Nonetheless, Badhwar thinks that the object of love is “phenomenologically non-fungible” (2003, p. 63; see also 1987, p. 14). By this she means that we experience our beloveds to be irreplaceable: “loving and delighting in [one person] are not completely commensurate with loving and delighting in another” (1987, p. 14). Love can be such that we sometimes desire to be with this particular person whom we love, not another whom we also love, for our loves are qualitatively different. But why is this? It seems as though the typical reason I now want to spend time with Amy rather than Bob is, for example, that Amy is funny but Bob is not. I love Amy in part for her humor, and I love Bob for other reasons, and these qualitative differences between them is what makes them not fungible. However, this reply does not address the worry about the possibility of trading up: if Bob were to be at least as funny (charming, kind, etc.) as Amy, why shouldn’t I dump her and spend all my time with him?

A somewhat different approach is taken by Whiting (1991). In response to the first worry concerning the object of love, Whiting argues that Vlastos offers a false dichotomy: having affection for someone that is disinterested —for her sake rather than my own—essentially involves an appreciation of her excellences as such. Indeed, Whiting says, my appreciation of these as excellences, and so the underlying commitment I have to their value, just is a disinterested commitment to her because these excellences constitute her identity as the person she is. The person, therefore, really is the object of love. Delaney (1996) takes the complementary tack of distinguishing between the object of one’s love, which of course is the person, and the grounds of the love, which are her properties: to say, as Solomon does, that we love someone for reasons is not at all to say that we only love certain aspects of the person. In these terms, we might say that Whiting’s rejection of Vlastos’ dichotomy can be read as saying that what makes my attitude be one of disinterested affection—one of love—for the person is precisely that I am thereby responding to her excellences as the reasons for that affection. [ 20 ]

Of course, more needs to be said about what it is that makes a particular person be the object of love. Implicit in Whiting’s account is an understanding of the way in which the object of my love is determined in part by the history of interactions I have with her: it is she, and not merely her properties (which might be instantiated in many different people), that I want to be with; it is she, and not merely her properties, on whose behalf I am concerned when she suffers and whom I seek to comfort; etc. This addresses the first worry, but not the second worry about fungibility, for the question still remains whether she is the object of my love only as instantiating certain properties, and so whether or not I have reason to “trade up.”

To respond to the fungibility worry, Whiting and Delaney appeal explicitly to the historical relationship. [ 21 ] Thus, Whiting claims, although there may be a relatively large pool of people who have the kind of excellences of character that would justify my loving them, and so although there can be no answer to question (2) about why I come to love this rather than that person within this pool, once I have come to love this person and so have developed a historical relation with her, this history of concern justifies my continuing to love this person rather than someone else (1991, p. 7). Similarly, Delaney claims that love is grounded in “historical-relational properties” (1996, p. 346), so that I have reasons for continuing to love this person rather than switching allegiances and loving someone else. In each case, the appeal to both such historical relations and the excellences of character of my beloved is intended to provide an answer to question (3) , and this explains why the objects of love are not fungible.

There seems to be something very much right with this response. Relationships grounded in love are essentially personal, and it would be odd to think of what justifies that love to be merely non-relational properties of the beloved. Nonetheless, it is still unclear how the historical-relational propreties can provide any additional justification for subsequent concern beyond that which is already provided (as an answer to question (1) ) by appeal to the excellences of the beloved’s character (cf. Brink 1999). The mere fact that I have loved someone in the past does not seem to justify my continuing to love him in the future. When we imagine that he is going through a rough time and begins to lose the virtues justifying my initial love for him, why shouldn’t I dump him and instead come to love someone new having all of those virtues more fully? Intuitively (unless the change she undergoes makes her in some important sense no longer the same person he was), we think I should not dump him, but the appeal to the mere fact that I loved him in the past is surely not enough. Yet what historical-relational properties could do the trick? (For an interesting attempt at an answer, see Kolodny 2003 and also Howard 2019.)

If we think that love can be justified, then it may seem that the appeal to particular historical facts about a loving relationship to justify that love is inadequate, for such idiosyncratic and subjective properties might explain but cannot justify love. Rather, it may seem, justification in general requires appealing to universal, objective properties. But such properties are ones that others might share, which leads to the problem of fungibility. Consequently it may seem that love cannot be justified. In the face of this predicament, accounts of love that understand love to be an attitude towards value that is intermediate between appraisal and bestowal, between recognizing already existing value and creating that value (see Section 4.3 ) might seem to offer a way out. For once we reject the thought that the value of our beloveds must be either the precondition or the consequence of our love, we have room to acknowledge that the deeply personal, historically grounded, creative nature of love (central to bestowal accounts) and the understanding of love as responsive to valuable properties of the beloved that can justify that love (central to appraisal accounts) are not mutually exclusive (Helm 2010; Bagley 2015).

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• Vlastos, G., 1981, “The Individual as Object of Love in Plato”, in Platonic Studies , 2nd edition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 3–42.
• White, R. J., 2001, Love’s Philosophy , Rowman & Littlefield.
• Whiting, J. E., 1991, “Impersonal Friends”, Monist , 74: 3–29.
• –––, 2013, “Love: Self-Propagation, Self-Preservation, or Ekstasis?”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy , 43: 403–29.
• Willigenburg, T. Van, 2005, “Reason and Love: A Non-Reductive Analysis of the Normativity of Agent-Relative Reasons”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice , 8: 45–62.
• Wollheim, R., 1984, The Thread of Life , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Wonderly, M., 2016, “On Being Attached”, Philosophical Studies , 173: 223–42.
• –––, 2017, “Love and Attachment”, American Philosophical Quarterly , 54: 235–50.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Aristotle , Nicomachean Ethics , translated by W.D. Ross.
• Moseley, A., “ Philosophy of Love ,” in J. Fieser (ed.), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

character, moral | emotion | friendship | impartiality | obligations: special | personal identity | Plato: ethics | Plato: rhetoric and poetry | respect | value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Family — Love

Essays on Love

Hook examples for love essays, anecdotal hook.

Love, as I have come to understand, is more than a feeling; it's a force that has shaped the course of my life. Join me on a journey through the depths and complexities of this powerful emotion.

Question Hook

What is the true nature of love? Is it an unexplainable chemistry between two people or a profound connection that transcends words? Exploring the concept of love opens the door to a world of wonder.

Quotation Hook

""Love is an endless act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom."" These words from Maya Angelou remind us of the transformative power of love and forgiveness in our lives.

Types of Love Hook

Love wears many faces, from romantic love to platonic, familial, and self-love. Delve into the different types of love and their unique qualities that define our human experience.

Love and Relationships Hook

What is the secret to a lasting and meaningful relationship? Explore the dynamics of love in the context of relationships and the role it plays in our connections with others.

The Science of Love Hook

Peek into the fascinating world of neurochemistry and psychology to uncover the science behind love. How do our brains and bodies respond to this extraordinary emotion?

Love's Impact on Art and Culture Hook

Throughout history, love has inspired countless works of art, music, and literature. Analyze the profound influence of love on our cultural expressions and creative endeavors.

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Essay About Love

Love is often difficult to define. Some might say it's a feeling, some call it an emotion, while some say it is an experience. Love is often hard to put into words. It's something we all experience in different ways, and it can mean different things to different people. Here are some sample essays about love.

100 Words Essay About Love

200 words essay about love, 500 words essay about love.

Chances are, when you think of love, the first thing that comes to mind is a warm, fuzzy feeling. It's an emotion so strong and all-consuming that it's often hard to put into words. At its core, love is about connection. For instance, the connection between a mother and her child, that between siblings, or two dedicated partners. It's about feeling seen, heard and understood.

There are countless traditions and beliefs around the world that affect how people approach love. Some people believe that love is a pure and sacred thing, while others believe that love is something that needs to be worked on and maintained. There are even those who believe that love is something that can be bought or sold.

Love exists in many different forms and can be expressed in countless ways. When you sit down to write about love, it's important that you reflect on your own personal experiences with it. Think about the different types of love that have touched your life. There's love between parents and children, between siblings, between friends, and between lovers. Each type of love is unique and deserves its own exploration.

Writing about love can be a powerful way to gain a deeper understanding of this complex emotion, and it can also be a beautiful way to celebrate and commemorate the people you love.

Defining Love For Ourselves

To gain a deeper understanding of love in our lives, it's important to reflect on how love has impacted us. Perhaps you can recall a moment when your heart skipped a beat when you received a birthday gift that you really wanted. Or maybe you can think back to a time when someone said something kind and it made you feel like the most special person in the world.

Through this process of reflection, you'll begin to gain clarity on the significance of love and what it means for yourself. It's an exercise that encourages us to understand our own boundaries and limitations when it comes to loving another.

The word "love" was derived from the word "luf," and the old English word for it was "lufu." The word was "Luba" in old German, and "leof" in old English, both of which meant dear. The Greeks were the first to use the word love, which they defined as human kinship or familiarity.

Whom Do I Love The Most?

Friendship, brotherhood, parental affection, and even romantic affection are all ways to express love. I love my brother the most. He is 4 years older than me and the bond we share is unmatched. Our relationship is based on mutual love and respect. He is always there for me no matter the time or place. My brother has been my biggest supporter. He is my biggest critic and is always there for me during any obstacles I face. He helps me through my struggles, and listens to me when in need. I love my brother dearly.

5 Love Languages

5 love languages are:

Words of affirmation | Words of affirmation is the expression of affection through spoken words, praise, or appreciation. For example, you like when someone tells you “I love you”.

Quality time | People whose love language is quality time prefer to have the other person's undivided attention. When you are together, they will feel loved if you are present and focused on them. For example, you like it when your friend does not constantly check her phone when with you.

Physical touch | Those who prefer physical touch as their love language prefer to express and receive affection through hugs and other forms of physical touch. For example, getting a hug from a friend or your mom makes you feel safe and happy.

Acts of service | Acts of service are small gestures you make for others to make them feel loved and appreciated. It could be anything from doing the dishes to running errands to cleaning up the room. For example, you like it when your friend plans out a movie night with you and cooks for you.

Receiving gifts | Gift-giving expresses love and affection to someone who uses and responds to this love language. They value not only the gift but also the recipient. For example, you like it when your friend surprises you with something you really wanted.

It is important to consider how knowing about love languages can help us.

Love languages enable us to express and receive love in a clear and visible manner.

Knowing one's own love language as well as the love languages of others who are important to them makes it easier to resolve any conflicts that may arise in the relationship.

In general, understanding love languages helps to strengthen relationships because communication about the needs of those in the bond can be more clearly communicated and fulfilled by one another.

Writing as a Tool for Processing and Understanding Love

When we write about our experiences and relationships, we often gain new insights that can help us better understand ourselves and the people we love. Writing can be an empowering tool to help you process your feelings and emotions. Reflection and writing is a cathartic experience, one where we can confront our emotions without judgement or fear.

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How to Describe Love in Writing (21 Best Tips + Examples)

Love is a universal language, yet when it comes to putting it into words, many of us find ourselves tongue-tied.

Here is how to describe in writing :

Describe love in writing by capturing emotional depth, using vivid and sensory details, incorporating unique metaphors and comparisons, exploring the complexities and nuances of love, and expressing love through actions and dialogue. Connect love to the plot and theme of the story.

In this guide, you’ll learn 21 top-notch tips and examples that will help you write about love like a pro.

1. The Tip of the Iceberg Technique

Table of Contents

When expressing love in writing, you don’t have to spill all the beans at once.

In fact, it’s often more powerful to leave something to the reader’s imagination. This technique involves alluding to the depth of your character’s emotions without spelling everything out.

It creates an air of mystery and makes your readers want to delve deeper into your character’s feelings.

For instance, your character might not declare his love directly.

But his actions, the way he looks at the person he loves, or the things he sacrifices for her, all speak volumes about his feelings.

The best part is, your readers will feel like they’re discovering these emotions alongside your character.

Often, this makes the experience even more impactful.

Example: He didn’t say anything. But he held her hand, his thumb tracing her knuckles in a silent confession.

2. The Show-Don’t-Tell Rule

We’ve all heard it a thousand times – show, don’t tell.

When it comes to writing about love, this rule is especially crucial. Telling your readers that your characters are in love is like giving them a summary of a movie – it’s informative, but it doesn’t evoke any emotions.

Showing, on the other hand, involves your readers and makes them feel like they’re part of the story.

When you ‘show’ love, you’re painting a picture with your words.

You’re creating a scene that readers can visualize, pulling them into your character’s world.

This can involve showing your characters’ actions, their body language, the way they speak, and their reactions.

Example: Instead of saying, “John was in love with Sarah,” you could write, “John’s heart fluttered every time Sarah walked into the room. Her laugh was his favorite sound, and he found himself doing silly things just to hear it.”

3. The Heart-in-Mouth Technique

This tip is all about creating suspense in your love story.

When you keep your readers on the edge of their seats, they’re more likely to be engaged and invested in your characters’ love story.

The Heart-in-Mouth Technique involves building tension between your characters, creating conflicts and hurdles they have to overcome, and then finally giving them (and your readers) the relief of resolution.

This technique doesn’t just apply to romantic novels or stories.

It can be used in any genre where love plays a significant role.

Remember, the key is to build anticipation and suspense, so when the love is finally expressed or reciprocated, it feels like a big payoff for your readers.

Example: The room was filled with people, but all he could see was her. Their eyes met across the room, a silent conversation passing between them. But as he began to make his way towards her, a man stepped in, sweeping her onto the dance floor. His heart sank, but he couldn’t look away.

4. The Whisper-in-the-Ear Method

Instead of loud, grand gestures of love, this method focuses on the quiet, almost unnoticed expressions of love that often speak louder than words.

These could be little things your characters do for each other, their shared glances, or even their unspoken understanding.

The Whisper-in-the-Ear Method can make your love story feel more realistic and relatable.

In real life, love isn’t always about the big, dramatic moments.

It’s about the little things, the day-to-day acts of kindness and understanding that show someone you care about them.

Example: She woke up to the smell of fresh coffee. He was already up, like always. She found him in the kitchen, humming to himself as he made breakfast. “Morning,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. She didn’t need a “I love you” to know that he did.

5. The Behind-Closed-Doors Technique

Another effective technique for writing about love is to hint at what happens behind closed doors.

This doesn’t mean you have to get explicit or graphic (unless you want to, of course).

It simply means suggesting intimacy between your characters without revealing everything.

This allows your readers to fill in the blanks with their own imagination, which can make your love story even more engaging.

The Behind-Closed-Doors Technique adds a sense of realism to your love story, because in real life, not every moment of a relationship is visible to others.

It also adds depth to your characters and their relationship.

You want to show that their love goes beyond what’s visible on the surface.

Example: They disappeared into the room, his hand never leaving hers. The door closed behind them, leaving the rest of the world outside. When they emerged hours later, their eyes held a secret glow only they understood.

6. The Push-and-Pull Dynamic

Love isn’t always smooth sailing – it’s full of ups and downs, conflicts and resolutions.

The Push-and-Pull Method involves creating tension and release in your love story, which keeps your readers engaged and invested in your characters’ relationship.

It’s like a dance, where your characters move towards each other, then away, then back again, creating a dynamic, compelling love story.

Conflict is crucial to any story, and love stories are no exception.

Your characters might argue, have misunderstandings, face external challenges, or deal with their own internal struggles.

The key is to resolve these conflicts in a satisfying way that strengthens their relationship.

Example: They argued, yes. There were days when they couldn’t stand each other. But every disagreement was followed by a reconciliation that brought them closer than before. It was like watching two magnets, pushing and pulling until they finally clicked into place.

7. The Subtext-is-Everything Technique

This technique is all about what’s unsaid, rather than what’s said.

It’s the hidden meanings, the secret messages, and the unspoken emotions that make your love story more engaging and realistic.

The Subtext-is-Everything Technique involves showing your characters’ feelings through their actions, their body language, and their dialogues.

Subtext adds depth and complexity to your characters and their relationship.

By using subtext, you allow your readers to dig deeper into your characters’ emotions and understand them on a deeper level.

Example: She looked away, but not before he caught the flicker of longing in her eyes. “You should go,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. But her hand lingered on his arm, a silent plea for him to stay.

8. The Less-is-More Method

Often when writing about love, the temptation is to over-explain and over-describe.

However, the beauty of the Less-is-More Method is that it relies on simplicity and understatement.

This can make your expressions of love more powerful because it doesn’t feel forced or overdone.

This approach requires precise language, carefully chosen details, and meaningful gestures.

This method is a bit like cooking a gourmet meal – you don’t need a ton of ingredients, just a few high-quality ones used well.

It’s about focusing on the essential aspects of your characters’ love and presenting them in a clear, effective way.

Example: He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time. And in that moment, he knew.

9. The Echo Effect

Repetition, when used correctly, can add depth and resonance to your love story.

The Echo Effect involves repeating certain phrases, gestures, or scenes to emphasize your characters’ feelings.

This technique can help your readers remember and connect with your characters’ love story on a deeper level.

Just like in music, where a recurring melody or lyric can evoke strong emotions, in writing, the Echo Effect can create a powerful emotional impact.

It creates a pattern that your readers recognize and anticipate, adding a layer of depth to your love story.

Example: He noticed it the first time they met – the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous. He saw it again on their first date, and then again when he told her he loved her. It was a silent echo of their journey, a testament to their shared moments.

10. The Shared-Secret Technique

The Shared-Secret Technique is all about creating a bond between your characters that only they understand.

This could be an inside joke, a shared experience, or a secret they keep together.

This technique can make your characters’ relationship feel unique and special, adding depth and intimacy to your love story.

This technique works well because it not only strengthens the bond between your characters but also creates a connection between your characters and your readers.

Your readers feel like they’re part of the secret, which can make them more invested in your characters’ love story.

Example: Every year on their anniversary, they would go back to the same little coffee shop where they first met. It wasn’t fancy, but it was their place, their little secret corner of the world.

11. The Emotional-Rollercoaster Method

The Emotional-Rollercoaster Method is all about creating a wide range of emotions in your love story.

It’s not just about the happy moments, but also the sad, tense, and even frustrating ones.

This technique can make your love story more realistic and engaging, as it mirrors the ups and downs of real-life relationships.

By creating a mix of emotions, you can keep your readers on their toes and make them feel more involved in your characters’ love story.

Even negative emotions can create a strong impact and make the happy moments even more satisfying.

Example: Their love was a tumultuous symphony – full of passionate crescendos, heartbreaking solos, and soft, tender interludes. It wasn’t perfect, but it was real, and it was theirs.

12. The Love-Is-in-the-Details Approach

The Love-Is-in-the-Details Approach involves focusing on the small, seemingly insignificant details of your characters’ relationship.

This could be the way they look at each other, their little habits and quirks, or the small acts of kindness they do for each other.

This technique can make your love story feel more intimate and personal, showing your characters’ love in a subtle, nuanced way.

Remember, sometimes the smallest details can have the biggest impact.

By focusing on these details, you can show your characters’ love in a more nuanced and authentic way.

Example: He knew just how she liked her coffee – two sugars, a dash of milk, and exactly seven minutes to cool down. It was a small thing, but it was one of the many ways he showed her he cared.

13. The Soul-Gazing Technique

The Soul-Gazing Technique is all about creating a deep, emotional connection between your characters.

This involves showing your characters understanding each other on a deeper level, beyond surface-level attraction or compatibility.

This technique can make your love story more impactful, showing a love that goes beyond the physical.

Creating this kind of emotional depth can involve showing your characters’ vulnerability, their shared experiences, or their mutual understanding and empathy.

It’s about showing that they ‘get’ each other on a level that no one else does.

Example: They sat in silence, but it wasn’t awkward. It was comfortable, intimate. They didn’t need words to understand each other – a look, a touch, a shared smile was enough.

14. The Dance-of-Words Method

This method is all about using your words to create a sort of dance between your characters.

Like a well-choreographed dance, a well-written love scene involves rhythm, pacing, and a balance between tension and release.

It’s about creating a back-and-forth dialogue or interaction that mirrors a dance.

The Dance-of-Words Method can make your love story feel dynamic and engaging.

The key is to find the right rhythm for your characters and your story, to create a love scene that feels natural and fluid.

Example: They spoke in hushed whispers, their words intertwining like dancers in a ballet. A compliment here, a tease there, a shared laugh, a shared silence. It was their own private dance, a testament to their love.

15. The Love-Is-A-Journey Approach

Love, like a journey, is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and unexpected detours.

The Love-Is-A-Journey Approach involves treating your characters’ love story as a journey, with its own challenges, milestones, and transformations.

This approach can make your love story more engaging and relatable.

It mirrors the complexities and uncertainties of real-life love.

By treating love as a journey, you can show your characters growing and evolving together, strengthening their bond and deepening their love.

Example: Their love was not a destination, but a journey. A winding path with unexpected twists and turns, breathtaking views and steep climbs. But they walked it together, hand in hand, cherishing every step of the way.

16. The Love-Letters Technique

Sometimes, the most powerful expressions of love come in written form.

The Love-Letters Technique involves using letters, notes, or other written communication as a way to express your characters’ love.

This can add a touch of nostalgia and romance to your love story, as well as allow your characters to express their feelings in a more intimate, personal way.

This technique is versatile and can be adapted to fit your story.

Your characters could exchange love letters, leave each other sweet notes, or even write in a shared diary or journal.

Example: He found the note on the kitchen table, her neat handwriting bringing a smile to his face. “See you tonight, love. P.S. Don’t forget to water the plants!” It was a small thing, but it reminded him of the love they shared.

17. The Language-of-Love Method

This method is all about using language and dialogue to express your characters’ love.

This doesn’t necessarily mean using flowery or overly romantic language.

Instead, it’s about using language that feels authentic and natural to your characters, whether that’s sweet and tender, playful and teasing, or deep and philosophical.

The Language-of-Love Method can make your love story feel more authentic and relatable.

It shows your characters’ unique way of expressing their love.

Example: She didn’t say “I love you” in so many words. But when she said “Take care,” “Drive safe,” or “Did you eat?” he heard the unspoken words of love in every sentence.

18. The Love-Is-A-Battlefield Approach

Love can sometimes feel like a battlefield, full of conflicts, challenges, and triumphs.

The Love-Is-A-Battlefield Approach involves treating your characters’ love story as a battle, with its own victories, losses, and strategies.

This approach can add drama and tension to your love story, making it more engaging and exciting.

By treating love as a battlefield, you can show your characters fighting for their love, overcoming obstacles, and emerging victorious against all odds.

Example: Their love was not easy. It was a battle, a constant fight against distance, time, and their own fears. But they fought bravely, tirelessly, because they knew their love was worth every struggle.

19. The Magic-in-Mundane Technique

This technique is all about finding the magic in the mundane – showing your characters’ love in everyday, ordinary moments.

This could be a shared meal, a morning routine, or a quiet evening at home.

The Magic-in-Mundane Technique can make your love story feel more relatable and realistic, showing that love isn’t just about the big, dramatic moments.

But also the small, everyday ones.

Example: It was an ordinary Tuesday evening. They sat on the couch, her feet in his lap, a movie playing in the background. He looked at her, her eyes sparkling with laughter, and he thought, this, this is love.

20. The Through-The-Eyes-Of-Love Technique

This technique involves showing your characters and their world through the eyes of love.

This means showing how your character sees the person they love.

Also, how they notice things that others don’t and how they cherish their shared moments and memories.

The Through-The-Eyes-Of-Love Technique can create a more intimate and personal perspective of your love story.

Example: To the world, she was just a girl. But to him, she was the world. He saw the beauty in her flaws, the strength in her vulnerability, the grace in her every move. Through his eyes, she was not just a girl, but a masterpiece of love.

21. The Love-in-Action Method

The Love-in-Action Method involves showing your characters’ love through their actions.

This means showing how your characters express their love, not just through words, but through their actions, decisions, and sacrifices.

The method can make your love story more powerful and impactful.

It shows that love is not just a feeling, but a choice, a commitment, a daily act of kindness and care.

Example: He didn’t say “I love you” often. But when he picked her up from work when it was raining, when he cooked her favorite meal after a long day, when he held her close during the thunderstorms, his actions spoke louder than any words.

How to Describe Love at First Sight

Describing love at first sight can be tricky, as it involves capturing a moment of instant attraction and connection.

To effectively portray this, focus on the details that made your characters fall for each other.

Describe the physical attributes, mannerisms, or other characteristics that caught their attention.

Try to depict the rush of emotions that accompany such a moment, from surprise and intrigue to excitement and longing.

Example: From across the crowded room, their eyes met. He was drawn in by her radiant smile, the way her eyes sparkled with joy, the effortless grace with which she moved. It was like a lightning strike, a sudden realization that shook him to his core. He didn’t know her, not yet, but he knew he wanted to.

How to Describe Unrequited Love

Unrequited love is a theme full of raw and intense emotions – longing, heartbreak, and sometimes even hope.

When describing unrequited love, delve into your character’s feelings and desires, exploring the depth of their affection for the person they can’t have.

Showcase the bittersweet nature of their love, the struggle between holding on and letting go.

Example: He loved her, but not in the way she loved him. Her love was like a blazing fire, burning brightly and fiercely. His love was more like a gentle breeze, comforting yet elusive. She yearned for him, dreamt of him, even as she knew that her feelings were unreciprocated.

Words to Describe Love

When learning how to describe love in writing, it’s helpful to have a list of words for reference.

Here are some of the best words to describe love:

• Unconditional
• Overwhelming
• Affectionate
• Irresistible
• Invigorating

Phrases to Describe Love

Consider the following phrases for describing love in writing:

• Head over heels
• Love is in the air
• Crazy in love
• Love against all odds
• Love at first sight
• The look of love
• Falling deeply in love
• A burning passion
• The language of love
• Lost in each other’s eyes
• Love knows no bounds
• The power of love
• A heart full of love
• A love that defies description
• A timeless love
• An unspoken bond
• Love that takes your breath away
• A love written in the stars
• A love that stands the test of time
• The depth of their love

Here is a great (and fun) video about how not to describe love in writing – which is just as important to know:

Final Thoughts: How to Describe Love in Writing

Ultimately, describing love in writing is about balancing all the narrative elements of a story.

It’s not easy but it is an incredible way to bring your characters and your story to life. I hope this guide helps you create an epic love that readers ship and swoon over for years.

Related Posts:

• How to Write a Dance Scene: 21 Best Tips + Examples
• How to Describe a Smile in Writing (700 Ways & Examples)
• How To Describe a Panic Attack in Writing (Ultimate Guide)
• How to Describe a Dog in Writing (100+ Examples)

What is love?

Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin University

Disclosure statement

Gery Karantzas receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is the founder of relationshipscienceonline.com

Deakin University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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From songs and poems to novels and movies, romantic love is one of the most enduring subjects for artworks through the ages. But what about the science?

Historical, cultural and even evolutionary evidence suggests love existed during ancient times and across many parts of the world. Romantic love has been found to exist in 147 of 166 cultures looked at in one study.

The complexity of love has much to do with how people experience it differently and how it can change over time.

Read more: Friday essay: finding spaces for love

Like, love, or ‘in love’?

Psychological research over the past 50 years has investigated the differences between liking someone, loving someone and being “in love”.

Liking is described as having positive thoughts and feelings towards someone and finding that person’s company rewarding. We often also experience warmth and closeness towards the people we like. In some instances we choose to be emotionally intimate with these people.

When we love someone we experience the same positive thoughts and experiences as when we like a person. But we also experience a deep sense of care and commitment towards that person.

Being “ in love ” includes all the above but also involves feelings of sexual arousal and attraction. However, research into people’s own views of love suggests that not all love is the same.

Passionate vs companionate love

Romantic love consists of two types: passionate and companionate love. Most romantic relationships, whether they be heterosexual or same sex , involve both these parts.

Passionate love is what people typically consider being “in love”. It includes feelings of passion and an intense longing for someone, to the point they might obsessively think about wanting to be in their arms.

The second part is known as companionate love . It’s not felt as intensely, but it’s complex and connects feelings of emotional intimacy and commitment with a deep attachment toward the romantic partner.

How does love change over time?

Research looking at changes in romantic love over time typically finds that although passionate love starts high, it declines over the course of a relationship.

There are various reasons for this.

As partners learn more about each other and become more confident in the long-term future of the relationship, routines develop. The opportunities to experience novelty and excitement can also decline, as can the frequency of sexual activity . This can cause passionate love to subside.

Although a reduction in passionate love is not experienced by all couples, various studies report approximately 20-40% of couples experience this downturn. Of couples who have been married in excess of ten years, the steepest downturn is most likely to occur over the second decade .

Life events and transitions can also make it challenging to experience passion. People have competing responsibilities which affect their energy and limit the opportunities to foster passion. Parenthood is an example of this.

Read more: Love by design: when science meets sex, lust, attraction and attachment

In contrast, companionate love is typically found to increase over time.

Although research finds most romantic relationships consist of both passionate and companionate love, it’s the absence or reductions in companionate love, moreso than passionate love, that can negatively affect the longevity of a romantic relationship.

But what’s the point of love?

Love is an emotion that keeps people bonded and committed to one another. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, love evolved to keep the parents of children together long enough for them to survive and reach sexual maturity .

Read more: What is this thing called love?

The period of childhood is much longer for humans than other species. As offspring rely on adults for many years to survive and to develop the skills and abilities needed for successful living, love is especially important for humans.

Without love, it’s difficult to see how the human species could have evolved .

A biological foundation too

Not only is there an evolutionary foundation to love, love is rooted in biology. Neurophysiological studies into romantic love show that people who are in the throes of passionate love experience increased activation in brain regions associated with reward and pleasure.

Read more: Love lockdown: the pandemic has put pressure on many relationships, but here's how to tell if yours will survive

In fact, the brain regions activated are the same as those activated by cocaine.

These regions release chemicals such as oxytocin, vasopressin and dopamine, which produce feelings of happiness and euphoria that are also linked to sexual arousal and excitement.

Interestingly, these brain regions are not activated when thinking about non-romantic relationships such as friends. These findings tell us that liking someone is not the same as being in love with someone.

What’s your love style?

Research has found three primary styles of love. First coined by psychologist John Lee , the love styles are eros, ludus and storge. These styles include people’s beliefs and attitudes about love and act as a guide for how to approach romantic relationships.

This style of love refers to erotic love and is focused on physical attraction and engaging in sex, the quick development of strong and passionate feelings for another and intense intimacy.

This style involves being emotionally distant and often involves “game-playing”. It’s not surprising people who endorse this love style are unlikely to commit, feel comfortable ending relationships and often start a new relationship before ending the current one.

Storge is often regarded as a more mature form of love. Priority is given to having a relationship with a person who has similar interests, affection is openly expressed and there is less emphasis on physical attractiveness. People high on storge love are trusting of others and are not needy or dependent on others.

Or is a mixture more your style?

You may see yourself in more than one of these styles.

Evidence suggests some people possess a mixture of the three main love styles; these mixtures were labelled by Lee as mania, pragma and agape.

Read more: Darling, I love you ... from the bottom of my brain

Manic love includes intense feelings for a partner as well as worry about committing to the relationship. Pragmatic love involves making sensible relationship choices in finding a partner who will make a good companion and friend. Agape is a self-sacrificing love that is driven by a sense of duty and selflessness.

Why do you love the way you do?

A person’s love style has little to do with their genetics . Rather, it’s associated with the development of personality and a person’s past relationship experiences.

Some studies have found people who are high on dark traits, such as narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellianism, endorse more of a ludus or pragma love style.

Read more: There are six styles of love. Which one best describes you?

People who have an insecure attachment style , involving a high need for validation and preoccupation with relationship partners, endorse more mania love, while those who are uncomfortable with intimacy and closeness do not endorse eros love.

No matter the differences in the way love is experienced, one thing remains common for all: we as humans are social animals who have a deep fascination for it.

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Essay on Power Of Love

Students are often asked to write an essay on Power Of Love in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Power Of Love

The magic of love.

Love is like a superpower that lives inside every person. It’s more than just a feeling; it’s a force that can make incredible things happen. When people care deeply for each other, they often become kinder and more willing to help. Love can turn a bad day into a good one and can make us feel safe and happy.

Love Brings People Together

Love has the power to bring people together. It doesn’t matter where you are from or what language you speak; love is something everyone understands. Friends and families stick together because of love, and it can even make strangers act like friends.

When you’re hurt or sad, love can be like a warm hug that makes you feel better. It’s like medicine for the heart. People who are loved often heal faster because they have happy thoughts and the support of others.

Love Inspires

Love can make you do amazing things. It gives you the courage to try new things and the strength to keep going, even when things are tough. Because of love, people have made beautiful music, art, and stories that we all enjoy.

Even when everything else changes, love can last. It’s a bond that doesn’t break easily. Love from our family, friends, and pets stays with us, making our lives brighter and full of joy.

250 Words Essay on Power Of Love

The strength of love.

Love is a magical feeling that can change everything. It’s like a superpower that all of us have, but not everyone uses it to its full potential. Love is not just about liking someone a lot or the warm feeling you get when you hug your family. It’s a force that can make impossible things possible.

Love in Families

In families, love is the glue that holds everyone together. When parents love their children, they work hard to give them a good life. They teach them right from wrong and help them grow into strong adults. This love doesn’t need words; it shows in actions like a packed lunch or a bedtime story.

Friendship Love

Love is also what makes friendships last. When friends care for each other, they stand by one another during tough times. They share laughter and wipe away tears. This kind of love makes everyone feel like they belong and that they are never alone.

Love Brings Peace

Love is powerful because it can bring peace. When people love and respect each other, they don’t fight. They work together to solve problems and make the world a better place. Love can stop wars and help people from different places get along.

In conclusion, love is a mighty power that can change lives. It can make us do great things for others and for ourselves. When we love, we become the best version of ourselves. So, let’s use the power of love every day to make our world a happier and more peaceful place.

500 Words Essay on Power Of Love

What is love.

Love is a feeling that is hard to describe in words, but we all know it when we feel it. It’s like a warm hug from a friend or the cozy feeling you get when you’re wrapped up in a blanket. Love can be between family members, friends, or even people and their pets. It’s like a special bond that connects one heart to another.

Love Makes Us Strong

When we talk about the power of love, we mean that love can make us do amazing things. Imagine you’re trying to lift a really heavy box. It’s tough, right? But if that box had something very important to someone you love, you might find the strength to lift it. That’s because love gives us extra energy and courage. It’s like when a mother lifts a car to save her child – love makes her stronger than she ever thought she could be.

Have you ever fallen down and gotten a scrape? It hurts, but when someone you love puts a bandage on it and gives you a hug, it starts to feel better. Love has a special power to heal our bodies and our feelings. When we’re sad or hurt, a simple act of love, like a kind word or a smile, can make the pain go away faster.

Love is like glue; it sticks people together. When we love someone, we want to be near them, talk to them, and share things with them. It doesn’t matter if people are from different places, speak different languages, or look different. Love doesn’t care about those things. Love can bring people together and create friendships that last a lifetime.

Love Teaches Us

Love is also a great teacher. When we love someone, we learn to share, to be kind, and to listen. We learn that other people’s feelings are just as important as our own. Love teaches us to be better friends, better family members, and better people. It’s like going to school, but instead of learning math or science, we’re learning how to care for each other.

Love Changes the World

The power of love can change the whole world. When people love and care for each other, they work together to make things better. They help those who are in need, they protect the environment, and they make sure everyone is treated fairly. It’s like a team working together to win a game, but the game is making the world a happier and safer place for everyone.

In conclusion, love is a powerful force that can do wonders. It can make us strong, heal our wounds, bring us together, teach us important lessons, and even change the world. Just like the sun makes flowers grow, love makes us grow into kind and caring people. So, let’s spread love everywhere we go, because with love, we can do anything!

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Power Of Friendship
• Essay on Power Of Fitness
• Essay on Power Corruption

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Essay on Love

Love is the essence of human life. God has gifted humans with different kinds of emotions that they can feel to experience the various aspects of life. Love is one such kind of emotion that all human beings have. Everybody has felt it, be it for a person, pet, or even a non-living object. We feel special when someone shows their love for us. Love is a divine energy. It can heal the wound and can work as a medicine for a person. It can help people to reach new heights in their lives and fulfil their goals. Giving love is also a way of worshipping God. With the help of this essay on love, students will understand the meaning of love, its significance and its different aspects. This will help them to write an effective essay on love. Moreover, students can also go through the list of CBSE Essays to practise more essays on different topics.

500+ Words Essay on Love

Love is an emotion that we all yearn for. From the day we are born, we crave love. The little baby who arrives in this world is unaware of things. The only thing that they understand is love. The relationship of a mother with the child is said to be the strongest. The mother’s love is the purest because a mother does not have any expectations. It is selfless love as it only has the feeling of giving.

As we grow up, we make friends, and we have relatives, neighbours and many more people in our lives. But what is the one thing that draws or repels us from a person? It is their nature. A person with a kind and loving nature is loved by all.

Importance of Love

We create love out of strong, personal bonds. Love gives us the assurance that we are not alone in the world. In a larger aspect, love runs the world around us. On a smaller scale, we survive as children because our parents love and care for us. Love can tell a lot about ourselves. When we love someone, we accept them, forgive their small mistakes and patiently listen to them. Our preferences, tastes, morality, thought processes and instinctive feelings also change.

The feeling of love keeps us alive. We start enjoying our lives. We feel motivated and inspired all the time. We think of doing better in our lives and strive for the best. We fall in love with life and start living in the present moment. This makes us realise that we must be thankful for whatever we have in life.

Society and Love

A society or community functions well when they have the feeling of togetherness and lovingness. A society in which everyone hates each other and can’t see the development of others can never make progress. So, for the progress of any society or nation, it is very important that people love each other. Love will bind people of different castes, races, sex, community, religion, area, etc., in one thread of togetherness. Love is the deepest and most meaningful of all sentiments.

Basic Elements of Love

Love has basic three elements. The first one is understanding. People are said to love each other when they are willing to provide mutual understanding. When things do not go in our favour, it requires sacrifice. Trust is the second element. People must build trust in relationships to make stronger bonds. Cooperation is the last one. People must cooperate and help each other to achieve their goals.

Love is the lubricant of life, and without love, the machinery of life will overheat from friction and ‘seize up’; but love is no substitute for the other qualities which go to the making of the whole of human existence.

Did you find the essay on love useful for your studies? Do let us know your view in the comment section. Keep Learning, and don’t forget to download the BYJU’S App for more interesting study videos.

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Read our detailed notes below on the essay “Of Love” by Francis Bacon. Our notes cover Of Love by Francis Bacon summary and explanation.

Of Love by Francis Bacon Summary

Bacon opens the essay by claiming that the love or romance shown on the stage, plays, and theatres is highly unrealistic, far from reality. On stage, love is portrayed as a noble trait leading to joy and excitement. It often brings tragedy and sorrow. However, in the real life, love does the real disasters by bringing dark and foreboding. History has a record that all the great, noble, and worthier man who has done something great in the life have refused this week passion and keep themselves and their business away from such things.

Bacon illustrates the example of Marcus Antonius, a member of Roman royalty who was given a chance to rule over 1/3rd of the empire, and Appius Claudius, the second member of royalty who was given the other 1/3rd of empire, to explain the destructing effects of love. The former was the man of ambition and power, however, amorous, impulsive, and restrained. He had little or no control over his heart and wandered in pursuit of love and lust. While Claudius was a sober, sage and wise man of great wisdom. He never brought himself disgrace while rushing towards quixotic desire.

Bacon quotes the Greek philosopher Epicurus who promoted self-control, self-discipline, and restraint in one’s life. He warned his followers against chasing the worldly desires and says that “we are sufficient for one another”. By this, he conveys a message that one must live his life fully, without indulging into conflicts with others. One should not avenge other and must restrain himself from other such misdeeds. He expresses his disproval for a man of great worth who bowed in front of a woman he loves and makes themselves small and miserable.

Bacon, furthermore, talks about the unfettered love that destroys the man. He says that such love devalues the man and make them insignificant in front of others. Moreover, Bacon argues about romantic poetry in which the writer exaggerates the beauty of his beloved unnecessary. To him, such exaggeration is only suitable for romance and writing; they are not applicable in practical life. A paramour who detriments his discriminating influence to transfer flattering words to his woman evidently negotiates with his intellect, and judging power. A proud man will never make his beloved to rule over him by pouring sugarcoated words on her. For Bacon, a wise man must not love as it is impossible to be wise and to love at the same time.

In an unrequited love, the praises and compliment of a man for his beloved woman appear to be a weakness of his character. Moreover, when her woman doesn’t feel responding the paramour, she treats his love as a pitiable weakness of his character. The love of man can result in two things: either the woman will respond to him in the same way or will create an inward feeling of insignificant in a woman for the man. So, Bacon warns, the man before falling in love should understand one thing that it doesn’t harm anything but man’s self-esteem.

Those who see the world as nothing but a place to fulfill their carnal desires destroy themselves. They losses both affluence and wisdom in search or sexual pleasures in the world. Bacon argues that such passions are overwhelmed in the period of prosperity than of adversity. Carnal pleasures get accentuated in the time of both happiness and distress and can be called as “child of folly”. However, these sensual pleasure when are uncontrolled can lead to the destruction of business, wealth, and health.

The army men seem to have a special attraction for love as they have for the wine. Bacon discusses the men’s nature and argues that men have a special inclination towards love for other. He makes his love universal by expanding it towards everyone, no matter such love gentle and kind and people who have some spiritual and religious belonging have this kind of love. In the end, Bacon says that the love that arises from marriage is the root cause of mankind’s creation, while love in friendship makes it perfect but lust corrupts it and embarrass it.

Of Love by Francis Bacon Literary Analysis

The essay “Of Love” is an argumentative essay written by Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon in this essay argues about the various ills of falling in love. He particularly argues about the carnal pleasures and its consequences.

Sir Francis Bacon is a well-known English Essayist and philosopher. He devoted himself to writing along with scientific work and wrote sixty essays. This essay, Of Love, is regarding the love. Love, in today’s world, have influenced a large number of people. The objective of Bacon in this essay is to demonstrate the effect of love on all kinds of people. No matter who you are, you will fall in love with somebody and this love will definitely have an effect on you, and sometimes love makes one do senseless things.

Bacon then talks about the sensual love that drains one’s intelligence. For some people, love is nothing but a source of Carnal pleasure. However, such love if lasted long has hard consequences.

Bacon then talks about the noble and kind love the spiritual people possess. They don’t love a single person or group of people but the entire universe. They are more inclined towards every creation in the universe. Another kind of noble love that Bacon argues about is the love between husband and wife. This love is further dignified with the love of friends.

Conciseness, straightforwardness, wittiness, and compact opinions are the merits that Bacon’s essay cover. The methodical way of inscription makes his essay logical and rational. The subject matter that he argues about is taken from real life experiences and is a hot topic of discussion in every time. The readers find his essay more welcoming and pleasurable. The use of the Latin proverb in his essay shows his high knowledge regarding the Latin language, and it also adds colors to his writing.

More From Francis Bacon

• Of Adversity
• Of Ambition
• Of Discourse
• Of Followers and Friends
• Of Friendship
• Of Great Place
• Of Marriage and Single Life
• Of Nobility
• Of Parents and Children
• Of Simulation and Dissimulation
• Of Superstition
• Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, best analysis: love and relationships in the great gatsby.

Book Guides

Love, desire, and sex are a major motivators for nearly every character in The Great Gatsby . However, none of Gatsby's five major relationships is depicted as healthy or stable.

So what can we make of this? Is Fitzgerald arguing that love itself is unstable, or is it just that experiencing love and desire the way the characters do is problematic?

Gatsby's portrayal of love and desire is complex. So we will explore and analyze each of Gatsby's five major relationships: Daisy/Tom, George/Myrtle, Gatsby/Daisy, Tom/Myrtle, and Jordan/Nick. We will also note how each relationship develops through the story, the power dynamics involved, and what each particular relationship seems to say about Fitzgerald's depiction of love.

We will also include analysis of important quotes for each of the five major couples. Finally, we will go over some common essay questions about love, desire, and relationships to help you with class assignments.

Keep reading for the ultimate guide to love in the time of Gatsby!

• George/Myrtle
• Daisy/Gatsby
• Nick/Jordan
• Common Essay Prompts/Discussion Topics

Quick Note on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.

Analyzing The Great Gatsby Relationships

We will discuss the romantic pairings in the novel first through the lens of marriage. Then we will turn our attention to relationships that occur outside of marriage.

Marriage 1: Daisy and Tom Buchanan

Tom and Daisy Buchanan were married in 1919, three years before the start of the novel. They both come from incredibly wealthy families, and live on fashionable East Egg, marking them as members of the "old money" class.

Daisy and Tom Marriage Description

As Jordan relates in a flashback, Daisy almost changed her mind about marrying Tom after receiving a letter from Gatsby (an earlier relationship of hers, discussed below), but eventually went through with the ceremony "without so much as a shiver" (4.142).

Daisy appeared quite in love when they first got married, but the realities of the marriage, including Tom's multiple affairs, have worn on her. Tom even cheated on her soon after their honeymoon, according to Jordan: "It was touching to see them together—it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the papers too because her arm was broken—she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel" (1.143).

So what makes the Buchanans tick? Why has their marriage survived multiple affairs and even a hit-and-run? Find out through our analysis of key quotes from the novel.

Daisy and Tom Marriage Quotes

Why they came east I don't know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. (1.17)

Nick introduces Tom and Daisy as restless, rich, and as a singular unit: they. Despite all of the revelations about the affairs and other unhappiness in their marriage, and the events of the novel, it's important to note our first and last descriptions of Tom and Daisy describe them as a close, if bored, couple . In fact, Nick only doubles down on this observation later in Chapter 1.

Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

"You see I think everything's terrible anyhow," she went on in a convinced way. "Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything." Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated—God, I'm sophisticated!"

"The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged." (1.118-120)

In this passage, Daisy pulls Nick aside in Chapter 1 and claims, despite her outward happiness and luxurious lifestyle, she's quite depressed by her current situation. At first, it seems Daisy is revealing the cracks in her marriage —Tom was "God knows where" at the birth of their daughter, Pammy—as well as a general malaise about society in general ("everything's terrible anyhow").

However, right after this confession, Nick doubts her sincerity. And indeed, she follows up her apparently serious complaint with "an absolute smirk." What's going on here?

Well, Nick goes on to observe that the smirk "asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged." In other words, despite Daisy's performance, she seems content to remain with Tom, part of the "secret society" of the ultra-rich.

So the question is: can anyone—or anything—lift Daisy out of her complacency?

"I never loved him," she said, with perceptible reluctance.

"Not at Kapiolani?" demanded Tom suddenly.

From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air.

"Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?" There was a husky tenderness in his tone. ". . . Daisy?" (7.258-62)

Over the course of the novel, both Tom and Daisy enter or continue affairs, pulling away from each other instead of confronting the problems in their marriage.

However, Gatsby forces them to confront their feelings in the Plaza Hotel when he demands Daisy say she never loved Tom. Although she gets the words out, she immediately rescinds them—"I did love [Tom] once but I loved you too!"—after Tom questions her.

Here, Tom—usually presented as a swaggering, brutish, and unkind—breaks down, speaking with "husky tenderness" and recalling some of the few happy moments in his and Daisy's marriage. This is a key moment because it shows despite the dysfunction of their marriage, Tom and Daisy seem to both seek solace in happy early memories. Between those few happy memories and the fact that they both come from the same social class, their marriage ends up weathering multiple affairs.

Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement.

They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together. (7.409-10)

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . . (9.146)

By the end of the novel, after Daisy's murder of Myrtle as well as Gatsby's death, she and Tom are firmly back together, "conspiring" and "careless" once again, despite the deaths of their lovers.

As Nick notes, they "weren't happy…and yet they weren't unhappy either." Their marriage is important to both of them, since it reassures their status as old money aristocracy and brings stability to their lives. So the novel ends with them once again described as a unit, a "they," perhaps even more strongly bonded since they've survived not only another round of affairs but murder, as well.

Daisy and Tom Marriage Analysis

Neither Myrtle's infatuation with Tom or Gatsby's deep longing for Daisy can drive a wedge between the couple. Despite the lying, cheating, and murdering that occurs during the summer, Tom and Daisy end the novel just like they began it: careless, restless, and yet, firmly united.

The stubborn closeness of Tom and Daisy's marriage, despite Daisy's exaggerated unhappiness and Tom's philandering, reinforces the dominance of the old money class over the world of Gatsby. Despite so many troubles, for Tom and Daisy, their marriage guarantees their continued membership in the exclusive world of the old money rich. In other words, class is a much stronger bond than love in the novel.

Marriage 2: Myrtle and George Wilson

In contrast to Tom and Daisy, Myrtle and George were married 12 years before the start of the novel. You might think that since they've been married for four times as long, their marriage is more stable. In fact, in contrast from Tom and Daisy's unified front, Myrtle and George's marriage appears fractured from the beginning .

Myrtle and George Marriage Description

Although Myrtle was taken with George at first, she overestimated his money and "breeding" and found herself married to a mechanic and living over a garage in Queens, a situation she's apparently unhappy with (2.112).

However, divorce was uncommon in the 1920s, and furthermore, the working-class Myrtle doesn't have access to wealthy family members or any other real options, so she stays married—perhaps because George is quite devoted and even in some ways subservient to her.

A few months before the beginning of the novel in 1922, she begins an affair with Tom Buchanan, her first affair (2.117). She sees the affair as a way out of her marriage, but Tom sees her as just another disposable mistress, leaving her desperate and vulnerable once George finds out about the affair.

Myrtle and George Marriage Quotes

I heard footsteps on a stairs and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:

"Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down."

"Oh, sure," agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity—except his wife, who moved close to Tom. (2.15-17)

As we discuss in our article on the symbolic valley of ashes , George is coated by the dust of despair and thus seems mired in the hopelessness and depression of that bleak place, while Myrtle is alluring and full of vitality. Her first action is to order her husband to get chairs, and the second is to move away from him, closer to Tom.

In contrast to Tom and Daisy, who are initially presented as a unit, our first introduction to George and Myrtle shows them fractured, with vastly different personalities and motivations. We get the sense right away that their marriage is in trouble, and conflict between the two is imminent.

"I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said finally. "I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe."

"You were crazy about him for a while," said Catherine.

"Crazy about him!" cried Myrtle incredulously. "Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there." (2.112-4)

Here we get a bit of back-story about George and Myrtle's marriage: like Daisy, Myrtle was crazy about her husband at first but the marriage has since soured. But while Daisy doesn't have any real desire to leave Tom, here we see Myrtle eager to leave, and very dismissive of her husband. Myrtle seems to suggest that even having her husband wait on her is unacceptable—it's clear she thinks she is finally headed for bigger and better things.

Generally he was one of these worn-out men: when he wasn't working he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless way. He was his wife's man and not his own. (7.312)

Again, in contrast to the strangely unshakeable partnership of Tom and Daisy, the co-conspirators, Michaelis (briefly taking over narrator duties) observes that George "was his wife's man," "worn out." Obviously, this situation gets turned on its head when George locks Myrtle up when he discovers the affair, but Michaelis's observation speaks to instability in the Wilson's marriage, in which each fights for control over the other . Rather than face the world as a unified front, the Wilsons each struggle for dominance within the marriage.

"Beat me!" he heard her cry. "Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!"

A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting; before he could move from his door the business was over. (7.314-5)

We don't know what happened in the fight before this crucial moment, but we do know George locked Myrtle in a room once he figured out she was having an affair. So despite the outward appearance of being ruled by his wife, he does, in fact, have the ability to physically control her. However, he apparently doesn't hit her, the way Tom does, and Myrtle taunts him for it—perhaps insinuating he's less a man than Tom.

This outbreak of both physical violence (George locking up Myrtle) and emotional abuse (probably on both sides) fulfills the earlier sense of the marriage being headed for conflict. Still, it's disturbing to witness the last few minutes of this fractured, unstable partnership.

Myrtle and George Marriage Analysis

While Tom and Daisy's marriage ends up being oddly stable thanks to their money, despite multiple affairs, Myrtle and George's marriage goes from strained to violent after just one.

In other words, Tom and Daisy can patch things up over and over by retreating into their status and money, while Myrtle and George don't have that luxury . While George wants to retreat out west, he doesn't have the money, leaving him and Myrtle in Queens and vulnerable to the dangerous antics of the other characters. The instability of their marriage thus seems to come from the instability of their financial situation, as well as the fact that Myrtle is more ambitious than George.

Fitzgerald seems to be arguing that anyone who is not wealthy is much more vulnerable to tragedy and strife. As a song sung in Chapter 5 goes, "The rich get richer and the poor get—children"—the rich get richer and the poor can't escape their poverty, or tragedy (5.150). The contrasting marriages of the Buchanans and the Wilsons help illustrate the novel's critique of the wealthy, old-money class.

Relationship 1: Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby

The relationship at the very heart of The Great Gatsby is, of course, Gatsby and Daisy , or more specifically, Gatsby's tragic love of (or obsession with) Daisy, a love that drives the novel's plot. So how did this ill-fated love story begin?

Daisy and Gatsby Relationship Description

Five years before the start of the novel, Jay Gatsby (who had learned from Dan Cody how to act like one of the wealthy) was stationed in Louisville before going to fight in WWI. In Louisville, he met Daisy Fay, a beautiful young heiress (10 years his junior), who took him for someone of her social class. Gatsby maintained the lie, which allowed their relationship to progress.

Gatsby fell in love with Daisy and the wealth she represents, and she with him (though apparently not to the same excessive extent ), but he had to leave for the war and by the time he returned to the US in 1919, Daisy has married Tom Buchanan.

Determined to get her back, Gatsby falls in with Meyer Wolfshiem, a gangster, and gets into bootlegging and other criminal enterprises to make enough money to finally be able to provide for her. By the beginning of the novel, he is ready to try and win her back over, ignoring the fact she has been married to Tom for three years and has a child. So does this genius plan turn out the way Gatsby hopes? Can he repeat the past? Not exactly.

Daisy and Gatsby Relationship Quotes

"You must know Gatsby."

"Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?" (1.60-1)

In the first chapter, we get a few mentions and glimpses of Gatsby, but one of the most interesting is Daisy immediately perking up at his name. She obviously still remembers him and perhaps even thinks about him, but her surprise suggests that she thinks he's long gone, buried deep in her past.

This is in sharp contrast to the image we get of Gatsby himself at the end of the Chapter, reaching actively across the bay to Daisy's house (1.152). While Daisy views Gatsby as a memory, Daisy is Gatsby's past, present, and future. It's clear even in Chapter 1 that Gatsby's love for Daisy is much more intense than her love for him.

"Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay."

Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor. (4.151-2)

In Chapter 4, we learn Daisy and Gatsby's story from Jordan: specifically, how they dated in Louisville but it ended when Gatsby went to the front. She also explains how Daisy threatened to call off her marriage to Tom after receiving a letter from Gatsby, but of course ended up marrying him anyway (4.140).

Here we also learn that Gatsby's primary motivation is to get Daisy back, while Daisy is of course in the dark about all of this. This sets the stage for their affair being on unequal footing: while each has love and affection for the other, Gatsby has thought of little else but Daisy for five years while Daisy has created a whole other life for herself .

"We haven't met for many years," said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever be.

"Five years next November." (5.69-70)

Daisy and Gatsby finally reunite in Chapter 5, the book's mid-point. The entire chapter is obviously important for understanding the Daisy/Gatsby relationship, since we actually see them interact for the first time. But this initial dialogue is fascinating, because we see that Daisy's memories of Gatsby are more abstract and clouded, while Gatsby has been so obsessed with her he knows the exact month they parted and has clearly been counting down the days until their reunion.

They were sitting at either end of the couch looking at each other as if some question had been asked or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy's face was smeared with tears and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room. (5.87)

After the initially awkward re-introduction, Nick leaves Daisy and Gatsby alone and comes back to find them talking candidly and emotionally. Gatsby has transformed—he is radiant and glowing. In contrast, we don't see Daisy as radically transformed except for her tears. Although our narrator, Nick, pays much closer attention to Gatsby than Daisy, these different reactions suggest Gatsby is much more intensely invested in the relationship.

"They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. "It makes me sad because I've never seen such—such beautiful shirts before." (5.118).

Gatsby gets the chance to show off his mansion and enormous wealthy to Daisy, and she breaks down after a very conspicuous display of Gatsby's wealth, through his many-colored shirts.

In Daisy's tears, you might sense a bit of guilt—that Gatsby attained so much just for her—or perhaps regret, that she might have been able to be with him had she had the strength to walk away from her marriage with Tom.

Still, unlike Gatsby, whose motivations are laid bare, it's hard to know what Daisy is thinking and how invested she is in their relationship, despite how openly emotional she is during this reunion. Perhaps she's just overcome with emotion due to reliving the emotions of their first encounters.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. (6.134)

In flashback, we hear about Daisy and Gatsby's first kiss, through Gatsby's point of view. We see explicitly in this scene that, for Gatsby, Daisy has come to represent all of his larger hopes and dreams about wealth and a better life—she is literally the incarnation of his dreams . There is no analogous passage on Daisy's behalf, because we actually don't know that much of Daisy's inner life, or certainly not much compared to Gatsby.

So we see, again, the relationship is very uneven—Gatsby has literally poured his heart and soul into it, while Daisy, though she obviously has love and affection for Gatsby, hasn't idolized him in the same way. It becomes clear here that Daisy—who is human and fallible—can never live up to Gatsby's huge projection of her .

"Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now—isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once—but I loved you too."

Gatsby's eyes opened and closed.

"You loved me too?" he repeated. (7.264-66)

Here we finally get a glimpse at Daisy's real feelings— she loved Gatsby, but also Tom, and to her those were equal loves . She hasn't put that initial love with Gatsby on a pedestal the way Gatsby has. Gatsby's obsession with her appears shockingly one-sided at this point, and it's clear to the reader she will not leave Tom for him. You can also see why this confession is such a blow to Gatsby: he's been dreaming about Daisy for years and sees her as his one true love, while she can't even rank her love for Gatsby above her love for Tom.

"Was Daisy driving?"

"Yes," he said after a moment, "but of course I'll say I was." (7.397-8)

Despite Daisy's rejection of Gatsby back at the Plaza Hotel, he refuses to believe that it was real and is sure that he can still get her back. His devotion is so intense he doesn't think twice about covering for her and taking the blame for Myrtle's death. In fact, his obsession is so strong he barely seems to register that there's been a death, or to feel any guilt at all. This moment further underscores how much Daisy means to Gatsby, and how comparatively little he means to her.

She was the first "nice" girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. It amazed him—he had never been in such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there—it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions. (8.10, emphasis added)

In Chapter 8, when we get the rest of Gatsby's backstory, we learn more about what drew him to Daisy—her wealth, and specifically the world that opened up to Gatsby as he got to know her. Interestingly, we also learn that her "value increased" in Gatsby's eyes when it became clear that many other men had also loved her. We see then how Daisy got all tied up in Gatsby's ambitions for a better, wealthier life.

You also know, as a reader, that Daisy obviously is human and fallible and can never realistically live up to Gatsby's inflated images of her and what she represents to him. So in these last pages, before Gatsby's death as we learn the rest of Gatsby's story, we sense that his obsessive longing for Daisy was as much about his longing for another, better life, than it was about a single woman.

Gatsby and Daisy Relationship Analysis

Daisy and Gatsby's relationship is definitely lopsided. There is an uneven degree of love on both sides (Gatsby seems much more obsessively in love with Daisy than Daisy is with him). We also have difficulty deciphering both sides of the relationship, since we know far more about Gatsby, his past, and his internal life than about Daisy.

Because of this, it's hard to criticize Daisy for not choosing Gatsby over Tom—as an actual, flesh-and-blood person, she never could have fulfilled Gatsby's rose-tinted memory of her and all she represents. Furthermore, during her brief introduction into Gatsby's world in Chapter 6, she seemed pretty unhappy. "She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented "place" that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village—appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand" (6.96). So could Daisy have really been happy if she ran off with Gatsby? Unlikely.

Many people tie Gatsby's obsessive pursuit of Daisy to the American Dream itself—the dream is as alluring as Daisy but as ultimately elusive and even deadly.

Their relationship is also a meditation on change —as much as Gatsby wants to repeat the past, he can't. Daisy has moved on and he can never return to that beautiful, perfect moment when he kissed her for the first time and wedded all her hopes and dreams to her.

Relationship 2: Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson

In contrast to Gatsby and Daisy's long history, the novel's other affair began much more recently: Tom and Myrtle start their relationship a few months before the novel opens.

Tom and Myrtle Relationship Description

Myrtle sees the affair as romantic and a ticket out of her marriage, while Tom sees it as just another affair, and Myrtle as one of a string of mistresses.

The pair has undeniable physical chemistry and attraction to each other, perhaps more than any other pairing in the book.

Perhaps due to Myrtle's tragic and unexpected death, Tom does display some emotional attachment to her, which complicates a reading of him as a purely antagonistic figure—or of their relationship as purely physical. So what drives this affair? What does it reveal about Tom and Myrtle? Let's find out.

Tom and Myrtle Relationship Quotes

"I think it's cute," said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. "How much is it?"

"That dog?" He looked at it admiringly. "That dog will cost you ten dollars."

The airedale—undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked delicately.

"That dog? That dog's a boy."

"It's a bitch," said Tom decisively. "Here's your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it." (2.38-43)

This passage is great because it neatly displays Tom and Myrtle's different attitudes toward the affair . Myrtle thinks that Tom is spoiling her specifically, and that he cares about her more than he really does—after all, he stops to buy her a dog just because she says it's cute and insists she wants one on a whim.

But to Tom, the money isn't a big deal. He casually throws away the 10 dollars, aware he's being scammed but not caring, since he has so much money at his disposal. He also insists that he knows more than the dog seller and Myrtle, showing how he looks down at people below his own class—but Myrtle misses this because she's infatuated with both the new puppy and Tom himself.

Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.

"It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I couldn't keep my eyes off him but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm—and so I told him I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn't hardly know I wasn't getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'You can't live forever, you can't live forever.' " (2.119-20)

Myrtle, twelve years into a marriage she's unhappy in, sees her affair with Tom as a romantic escape. She tells the story of how she and Tom met like it's the beginning of a love story. In reality, it's pretty creepy —Tom sees a woman he finds attractive on a train and immediately goes and presses up to her like and convinces her to go sleep with him immediately. Not exactly the stuff of classic romance!

Combined with the fact Myrtle believes Daisy's Catholicism (a lie) is what keeps her and Tom apart, you see that despite Myrtle's pretensions of worldliness, she actually knows very little about Tom or the upper classes, and is a poor judge of character. She is an easy person for Tom to take advantage of.

Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing in impassioned voices whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name.

"Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" shouted Mrs. Wilson. "I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai——"

Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. (2.124-6)

In case the reader was still wondering that perhaps Myrtle's take on the relationship had some basis in truth, this is a cold hard dose of reality. Tom's vicious treatment of Myrtle reminds the reader of his brutality and the fact that, to him, Myrtle is just another affair, and he would never in a million years leave Daisy for her.

Despite the violence of this scene, the affair continues. Myrtle is either so desperate to escape her marriage or so self-deluded about what Tom thinks of her (or both) that she stays with Tom after this ugly scene.

There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control. (7.164)

Chapter 2 gives us lots of insight into Myrtle's character and how she sees her affair with Tom. But other than Tom's physical attraction to Myrtle, we don't get as clear of a view of his motivations until later on. In Chapter 7, Tom panics once he finds out George knows about his wife's affair. We learn here that control is incredibly important to Tom—control of his wife, control of his mistress, and control of society more generally (see his rant in Chapter 1 about the "Rise of the Colored Empires" ).

So just as he passionately rants and raves against the "colored races," he also gets panicked and angry when he sees that he is losing control both over Myrtle and Daisy. This speaks to Tom's entitlement —both as a wealthy person, as a man, and as a white person—and shows how his relationship with Myrtle is just another display of power. It has very little to do with his feelings for Myrtle herself. So as the relationship begins to slip from his fingers, he panics—not because he's scared of losing Myrtle, but because he's scared of losing a possession.

"And if you think I didn't have my share of suffering—look here, when I went to give up that flat and saw that damn box of dog biscuits sitting there on the sideboard I sat down and cried like a baby. By God it was awful——" (9.145)

Despite Tom's abhorrent behavior throughout the novel, at the very end, Nick leaves us with an image of Tom confessing to crying over Myrtle. This complicates the reader's desire to see Tom as a straightforward villain. This confession of emotion certainly doesn't redeem Tom, but it does prevent you from seeing him as a complete monster.

Tom and Myrtle Relationship Analysis

Just as George and Myrtle's marriage serves as a foil to Tom and Daisy's, Tom and Myrtle's affair is a foil for Daisy and Gatsby's . While Daisy and Gatsby have history, Tom and Myrtle got together recently. And while their relationship seems to be driven by physical attraction, Gatsby is attracted to Daisy's wealth and status.

The tragic end to this affair, as well as Daisy and Gatsby's, reinforces the idea that class is an enormous, insurmountable barrier , and that when people try to circumvent the barrier by dating across classes, they end up endangering themselves.

Tom and Myrtle's affair also speaks to the unfair advantages that Tom has as a wealthy, white man. Even though for a moment he felt himself losing control over his life, he quickly got it back and was able to hide in his money while Gatsby, Myrtle, and George all ended up dead thanks to their connection to the Buchanans.

In short, Tom and Myrtle's relationship allows Fitzgerald to sharply critique the world of the wealthy, old-money class in 1920s New York . By showing Tom's affair with a working-class woman, Nick reveals Tom's ugliest behavior as well as the cruelty of class divisions during the roaring twenties.

Relationship 3: Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker

We've covered the novel's two married couples—the Buchanans and the Wilsons—as well as the affairs of three out of four of those married parties. But there is one more relationship in the novel, one that is a bit disconnected to the others. I'm talking, of course, about Nick and Jordan.

Nick and Jordan Relationship Description

Nick and Jordan are the only couple without any prior contact before the novel begins (aside from Nick apparently seeing her photo once in a magazine and hearing about her attempt to cheat). Jordan is a friend of Daisy's who is staying with her, and Nick meets Jordan when he goes to have dinner with the Buchanans.

We can observe their relationship most closely in Chapters 3 and 4, as Nick gets closer to Jordan despite needing to break off his relationship back home first. However, their relationship takes a back seat in the middle and end of the novel as the drama of Daisy's affair with Gatsby, and Tom's with Myrtle, plays out. So by the end of the novel, Nick sees Jordan is just as self-centered and immoral as Tom and Daisy, and his earlier infatuation fades to disgust. She, in turn, calls him out for not being as honest and careful as he presents himself as.

So what's the story with Nick and Jordan? Why include their relationship at all? Let's dig into what sparks the relationship and the insights they give us into the other characters.

Nick and Jordan Relationship Quotes

I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before. (1.57)

As Nick eyes Jordan in Chapter 1, we see his immediate physical attraction to her , though it's not as potent as Tom's to Myrtle. And similarly to Gatsby's attraction to Daisy being to her money and voice, Nick is pulled in by Jordan's posture, her "wan, charming discontented face"— her attitude and status are more alluring than her looks alone . So Nick's attraction to Jordan gives us a bit of insight both in how Tom sees Myrtle and how Gatsby sees Daisy.

"Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon."

"Of course you will," confirmed Daisy. "In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing——" (1.131-2)

Throughout the novel, we see Nick avoiding getting caught up in relationships—the woman he mentions back home, the woman he dates briefly in his office, Myrtle's sister—though he doesn't protest to being "flung together" with Jordan. Perhaps this is because Jordan would be a step up for Nick in terms of money and class, which speaks to Nick's ambition and class-consciousness , despite the way he paints himself as an everyman. Furthermore, unlike these other women, Jordan isn't clingy—she lets Nick come to her. Nick sees attracted to how detached and cool she is.

"You're a rotten driver," I protested. "Either you ought to be more careful or you oughtn't to drive at all."

"I am careful."

"No, you're not."

"Well, other people are," she said lightly.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"They'll keep out of my way," she insisted. "It takes two to make an accident."

"Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself."

"I hope I never will," she answered. "I hate careless people. That's why I like you."

Her grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. (3.162-70)

Here, Nick is attracted to Jordan's blasé attitude and her confidence that others will avoid her careless behavior—an attitude she can afford because of her money. In other words, Nick seems fascinated by the world of the super-wealthy and the privilege it grants its members.

So just as Gatsby falls in love with Daisy and her wealthy status, Nick also seems attracted to Jordan for similar reasons. However, this conversation not only foreshadows the tragic car accident later in the novel, but it also hints at what Nick will come to find repulsive about Jordan: her callous disregard for everyone but herself .

It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more but of this clean, hard, limited person who dealt in universal skepticism and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired." (4.164)

Nick, again with Jordan, seems exhilarated to be with someone who is a step above him in terms of social class, exhilarated to be a "pursuing" person, rather than just busy or tired . Seeing the usually level-headed Nick this enthralled gives us some insight into Gatsby's infatuation with Daisy, and also allows us to glimpse Nick-the-person, rather than Nick-the-narrator.

And again, we get a sense of what attracts him to Jordan—her clean, hard, limited self, her skepticism, and jaunty attitude. It's interesting to see these qualities become repulsive to Nick just a few chapters later.

Just before noon the phone woke me and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool as if a divot from a green golf links had come sailing in at the office window but this morning it seemed harsh and dry.

"I've left Daisy's house," she said. "I'm at Hempstead and I'm going down to Southampton this afternoon."

Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisy's house, but the act annoyed me and her next remark made me rigid.

"You weren't so nice to me last night."

"How could it have mattered then?" (8.49-53)

Later in the novel, after Myrtle's tragic death, Jordan's casual, devil-may-care attitude is no longer cute—in fact, Nick finds it disgusting . How can Jordan care so little about the fact that someone died, and instead be most concerned with Nick acting cold and distant right after the accident?

In this brief phone conversation, we thus see Nick's infatuation with Jordan ending, replaced with the realization that Jordan's casual attitude is indicative of everything Nick hates about the rich, old money group . So by extension, Nick's relationship with Jordan represents how his feelings about the wealthy have evolved—at first he was drawn in by their cool, detached attitudes, but eventually found himself repulsed by their carelessness and cruelty.

She was dressed to play golf and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little, jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that though there were several she could have married at a nod of her head but I pretended to be surprised. For just a minute I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake, then I thought it all over again quickly and got up to say goodbye.

"Nevertheless you did throw me over," said Jordan suddenly. "You threw me over on the telephone. I don't give a damn about you now but it was a new experience for me and I felt a little dizzy for a while."

We shook hands.

"Oh, and do you remember—" she added, "——a conversation we had once about driving a car?"

"Why—not exactly."

"You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride."

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor." (9.129-135)

In their official break-up, Jordan calls out Nick for claiming to be honest and straightforward but in fact being prone to lying himself . So even as Nick is disappointed in Jordan's behavior, Jordan is disappointed to find just another "bad driver" in Nick, and both seem to mutually agree they would never work as a couple. It's interesting to see Nick called out for dishonest behavior for once. For all of his judging of others, he's clearly not a paragon of virtue, and Jordan clearly recognizes that.

This break-up is also interesting because it's the only time we see a relationship end because the two members choose to walk away from each other—all the other failed relationships (Daisy/Gatsby, Tom/Myrtle, Myrtle/George) ended because one or both members died . So perhaps there is a safe way out of a bad relationship in Gatsby—to walk away early, even if it's difficult and you're still "half in love" with the other person (9.136).

If only Gatsby could have realized the same thing.

Nick and Jordan Relationship Analysis

Nick and Jordan's relationship is interesting, because it's the only straightforward dating we see in the novel (it's neither a marriage nor an illicit affair), and it doesn't serve as an obvious foil to the other relationships. But it does echo Daisy and Gatsby's relationship , in that a poorer man desires a richer girl, and for that reason gives us additional insight into Gatsby's love for Daisy. But it also quietly echoes Tom's relationship with Myrtle , since we Nick seems physically drawn to Jordan as well.

The relationship also is one of the ways we get insight into Nick. For instance, he only really admits to his situation with the woman back at home when he's talking about being attracted to Jordan. "I'd been writing letters once a week and signing them: "Love, Nick," and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free" (3.170). Through Jordan, we actually see Nick experience exhilaration and love and attraction.

Finally, through his relationship with Jordan, we can easily see Nick's evolving attitude toward the wealthy elite. While he allows himself to be charmed at first by this fast-moving, wealthy, and careless world, he eventually becomes disgusted by the utter lack of morality or compassion for others.

Discussion and Essay Topics on Love in The Great Gatsby

These are a few typical essay topics surrounding issues of love, desire, and relationships you should be prepared to write about. Some of them give you the opportunity to zoom in on just one couple, while others have you analyze the relationships in the book more generally. As always, it will be important to close-read, find key lines to use as evidence, and argue your point with a clearly-organized essay. (You can read more of our essay writing tips in our Character Analysis article .) So let's take a look at a few common love and relationships prompts to see this analysis in action!

Is there any couple in The Great Gatsby that has true love?

For any essay topic that asks if characters in a book represent some kind of virtue (whether that's true love, honesty, morality, or anything else), you should start by coming up with a definition of the value . For example, in this case, you should give a definition of "true love," since how you define true love will affect who you choose and how you make your argument.

For example, if you argue that true love comes down to stability, you could potentially argue Tom and Daisy have true love, since they actually remain together, unlike any of the other couples. But if you argue true love is based on strong emotion, you might say Gatsby's love for Daisy is the truest. So however you define true love, make sure to clearly state that definition, since it will shape your argument!

Remember it's also possible in a prompt like this to argue that no one in the book has true love. You would still start by defining true love, but then you would explain why each of the major couples does not have real love, and perhaps briefly explain what element each couple is missing.

Is The Great Gatsby a love story or a satire?

Some essays have you zoom way out and consider what The Great Gatsby's overall genre (or type) is. The most common argument is that, while Gatsby is a tragic love story on the surface (the love of Gatsby and Daisy), it's really more of a satire of wealthy New York society, or a broader critique of the American Dream. This is because the themes of money , society and class, and the American Dream are pretty constant, while the relationships are more of a vehicle to examine those themes.

To argue which genre Gatsby is (whether you say "it's more of a love story" or "it's more of a satire"), define your chosen genre and explain why Gatsby fits the definition . Make sure to include some evidence from the novel's final chapter, no matter what you argue. Endings are important, so make sure you link Gatsby's ending to the genre you believe it is. For example, if you're arguing "Gatsby is a love story," you could emphasize the more hopeful, optimistic parts of Nick's final lines. But if you argue "Gatsby is satire," you would look at the sad, harsh details of the final chapter—Gatsby's sparsely-attended funeral, the crude word scrawled against his back steps, etc. Also, be sure to check out our post on the novel's ending for more analysis.

Is what Gatsby feels for Daisy love, obsession, affection, or accumulation/objectification? What is Fitzgerald's message here?

A really common essay topic/topic of discussion is the question of Gatsby's love for Daisy (and sometimes, Daisy's love for Gatsby): is it real, is it a symbol for something else, and what does it reveal about both Daisy and Gatsby's characters?

As we discussed above, Gatsby's love for Daisy is definitely more intense than Daisy's love for Gatsby, and furthermore, Gatsby's love for Daisy seems tied up in an obsession with her wealth and the status she represents . From there, it's up to you how you argue how you see Gatsby's love for Daisy—whether it's primarily an obsession with wealth, whether Daisy is just an object to be collected, or whether you think Gatsby actually loves Daisy the person, not just Daisy the golden girl.

Analyze the nature of male-female relationships in the novel.

This is a zoomed-out prompt that wants you to talk about the nature of relationships in general in the novel. Still, even though we have clearly identified the five major relationships, it might be complicated for you to try and talk about every single one in depth in just one essay. Instead, it will be more manageable for you to use evidence from two to three of the couples to make your point .

You could explore how the relationships expose that America is in fact a classist society. After all, the only relationship that lasts (Tom and Daisy's) lasts because of the security of being in the same class, while the others fail either due to cross-class dating or one member (Myrtle) desperately trying to break out of her given class.

You could also talk about how the power dynamics within the relationships vary wildly , but only the couple that seems to have a stable relationship is also described as "conspiratorial" and often as a "they"—that is, Tom and Daisy Buchanan. So perhaps Fitzgerald does envision a sort of lasting partnership being possible, if certain conditions (like both members being happy with the amount of money in the marriage) are met.

This prompt and ones like it give you a lot of freedom, but make sure not to bite off more than you chew!

What's Next?

Wondering how else you can pair these characters in an essay? Check out our article on comparing and contrasting the most common character pairings in The Great Gatsby .

Why is money so crucial in the world of the novel? Read more about money and materialism in Gatsby to find out.

Need to get the events of the book straight? Check out our chapter summaries to get a handle on the various parties, liaisons, flashbacks, and deaths. Get started with our book summary here !

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Complex Interplay of Casablanca’s Characters: Love, Loyalty, and Sacrifice

This essay is about the complex characters in the 1942 film “Casablanca” and their roles in driving the narrative. It explores Rick Blaine’s transformation from a cynical loner to a selfless hero, Ilsa Lund’s struggle between love and duty, and Victor Laszlo’s embodiment of resistance and moral clarity. It also touches on Captain Louis Renault’s unexpected redemption and the contributions of supporting characters like Sam and Major Strasser. The essay highlights how these characters reflect themes of love, loyalty, and sacrifice, making “Casablanca” a timeless study of human nature during wartime.

How it works

The 1942 masterpiece “Casablanca” has entranced audiences across generations, not solely due to its intricate plot and unforgettable dialogue, but also owing to its intricate and multifaceted characters. At the core of this wartime romance, against the backdrop of Vichy-controlled Morocco during World War II, reside figures whose motives and deeds propel the narrative forward, each contributing to the enduring legacy of the film.

Rick Blaine, embodied by Humphrey Bogart, stands as arguably the most emblematic character in “Casablanca.” As the proprietor of Rick’s Café Américain, Rick initially presents himself as a cynical, world-weary expatriate who asserts, “I stick my neck out for nobody.

” His aloof demeanor obscures a past colored by idealism and heartache, gradually unveiled through flashbacks and interactions with other characters. Rick’s evolution from a disillusioned recluse to a man prepared to sacrifice his own happiness for a greater cause lies at the heart of the film’s emotional resonance. His odyssey serves as a testament to the potency of love and duty, showcasing the complexities inherent in human nature during tumultuous times.

Ingrid Bergman’s portrayal of Ilsa Lund adds another stratum of profundity to the narrative. Ilsa embodies a character torn between affection and obligation, personifying the internal conflict experienced by many amid the war. Her prior romance with Rick in Paris, abruptly severed by the revelation of her husband, Victor Laszlo’s survival, sets the stage for the film’s central conflict. Ilsa’s reappearance in Rick’s life, seeking refuge for herself and Victor, compels Rick to confront his unresolved emotions and the harsh realities of their milieu. Ilsa’s character serves as a poignant reminder of the personal sacrifices demanded by wartime, and her internal struggle between her affection for Rick and her allegiance to her spouse encapsulates the moral quandaries confronting those in the resistance.

Victor Laszlo, depicted by Paul Henreid, epitomizes resilience and steadfast dedication to a cause. A celebrated Czech resistance leader, Laszlo’s presence in Casablanca embodies hope and defiance against the Nazi regime. His composed demeanor and unwavering resolve stand in stark contrast to Rick’s cynicism. Laszlo’s relationship with Ilsa, characterized by mutual respect and shared principles, underscores the sacrifices and personal toll exacted by the struggle for liberty. While his character may appear less dynamic compared to Rick and Ilsa, Laszlo’s unwavering integrity serves as the moral lodestar of the film, guiding other characters towards acts of valor and selflessness.

Captain Louis Renault, portrayed by Claude Rains, injects a dose of complexity and allure into the narrative. As the morally dubious yet charming Vichy police captain, Renault’s allegiances seem fluid, driven by self-interest rather than any ideological conviction. His association with Rick is one of convenience and mutual advantage, yet as the plot unfolds, Renault’s character unveils unexpected depth. His ultimate decision to align with Rick, facilitating the escape of Victor and Ilsa, symbolizes his own subtle metamorphosis. Renault’s actions in the climactic scenes suggest that even those ostensibly devoid of principles can be swayed by acts of courage and righteousness, hinting at the potential for redemption.

Secondary characters such as Sam, the pianist portrayed by Dooley Wilson, and Major Strasser, the Nazi officer portrayed by Conrad Veidt, further enrich the fabric of “Casablanca.” Sam embodies loyalty and the enduring potency of music to evoke memories and sentiments, while Strasser personifies the oppressive force against which the main characters must contend and resist. Each character, regardless of their prominence, plays a pivotal role in the narrative, contributing to the film’s intricate depiction of human relationships and the struggle between personal desires and broader obligations.

The interactions among these characters yield a narrative that is as emotionally evocative as it is thematically dense. “Casablanca” deftly intertwines elements of romance, intrigue, and ethical quandaries, rendering it a timeless exploration of character and circumstance. The enduring allure of the film can be attributed to its encapsulation of the essence of human experience amidst extraordinary circumstances, serving as a poignant reminder of the enduring potency of love, sacrifice, and the pursuit of a better world.

In summation, the characters of “Casablanca” transcend mere roles in a wartime drama; they embody facets of the human condition, each representing distinct aspects of love, fidelity, and sacrifice. Their complexities and transformations propel the narrative forward, rendering “Casablanca” a film that continues to resonate with audiences, imparting timeless insights into the nature of humanity in the face of adversity.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). Complex Interplay of Casablanca's Characters: Love, Loyalty, and Sacrifice . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/complex-interplay-of-casablancas-characters-love-loyalty-and-sacrifice/ [Accessed: 3 Jun. 2024]

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Laura Jarrett reveals what it was like to read Trump’s historic verdict on live TV

NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett thrives under pressure. So Jarrett was ready to go the afternoon of May 30, when a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie and Nightly News’ Lester Holt were delivering a special report, when suddenly Jarrett’s voice could heard in the background. It was urgent.

“Guys! We need to go,” Jarrett said. “We need to go.”

“Go,” Savannah said. 

The cameras then turned to Jarrett, who read off each count, one by one. Trump became the first former United States president to be convicted of felony crimes.

It’s moments like this that inspired Jarrett to leave her career practicing law to become a legal analyst on TV. 

“I’ve always loved putting the puzzle pieces together and figuring out how to tell a complicated story in the most straightforward and compelling way as possible,” Jarrett previously told TODAY.com . 

Here, Jarrett recounts what was going through her mind at that historic moment. 

“IN THIS MOMENT , my thoughts were this: Be calm. Play it straight. You know this case. Those of us who cover high profile legal cases are used to pressure.

But 5:00 p.m. on Thursday — when former President Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of felony crimes — was next level. I went to law school, I clerked for judges, I practiced law, and I gave it all up — for this. This was the moment that sealed that I made the right choice.

I thought carefully about my dress, and more importantly — sneakers! I knew it could be a long day, but the bathroom situation when waiting outside of court is always tricky. Turns out when you are reading ‘guilty’ on live television 34 times with millions watching, you forget you sort of needed to pee.  

As I looked at the first ‘G’ for count of the jury’s verdict on our Google spreadsheet entered by our intrepid correspondent in the courtroom, Tom Winter, I felt eerily relaxed. But then you realize, you have 33 more to go! So I just kept going. We had a plan. And I love a plan. So I kept at it.

I haven’t seen my two young children in days. But on Friday morning, for the first time in weeks, I will walk my son to school. His very last day of pre-school. Because he has his mama back.”

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“You Are My Friend” Early Androids and Artificial Speech

By Jessica Riskin

Centuries before audio deepfakes and text-to-speech software, inventors in the eighteenth century constructed androids with swelling lungs, flexible lips, and moving tongues to simulate human speech. Jessica Riskin explores the history of such talking heads, from their origins in musical automata to inventors’ quixotic attempts to make machines pronounce words, converse, and declare their love.

May 29, 2024

Design for parts of a speaking machine from a 1791 treatise by Wolfgang von Kempelen. The bellows act as lungs feeding air into the voice box, which is fitted with a vibrating reed whose sounds are shaped by opening and closing valves. Not pictured here is a rubber “mouth” attachment, which connects to “ o ” with a flange that bears holes resembling nostrils — Source .

The word “android”, derived from Greek roots meaning “manlike”, was the coinage of Gabriel Naudé, French physician and librarian, personal doctor to Louis XIII, and later architect of the forty-thousand-volume library of Cardinal Jules Mazarin. Naudé was a rationalist and an enemy of superstition. In 1625 he published a defense of Scholastic philosophers to whom tradition had ascribed works of magic. He included the thirteenth-century Dominican friar, theologian, and philosopher Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), who, according to legend, had built an artificial man made of bronze. 1

This story seems to have originated long after Albert’s death with Alfonso de Madrigal (also known as El Tostado), a voluminous commentator of the fifteenth century, who adapted and embellished the tales of moving statues and talking brazen heads in medieval lore. 2 El Tostado said that Albert had worked for thirty years to compose a whole man out of metal. The automaton supplied Albert with the answers to all of his most vexing questions and problems and even, in some versions of the tale, obligingly dictated a large part of Albert’s voluminous writings. The machine had met its fate, according to El Tostado, when Albert’s student, Thomas Aquinas, smashed it to bits in frustration, having grown tired of “its great babbling and chattering”. 3

Naudé did not believe in Albert’s talkative statue. He rejected it and other tales of talking automaton heads as “false, absurd and erroneous”. 4 The reason Naudé cited was the statues’ lack of equipment: being altogether without “muscles, lungs, epiglottis, and all that is necessary for a perfect articulation of the voice”, they simply did not have the necessary “parts and instruments” to speak reasonably. 5 Naudé concluded, in light of all the reports, that Albert the Great probably had built an automaton, but never one that could give him intelligible and articulate responses to questions. Instead, Albert’s machine must have been similar to the Egyptian statue of Memnon, much discussed by ancient authors, which murmured agreeably when the sun shone upon it: the heat caused the air inside the statue to “rarefy” so that it was forced out through little pipes, making a murmuring sound. 6

Despite disbelieving in Albert the Great’s talking head, Naudé gave it a powerful new name, referring to it as the “android”. 7 Thus deftly, he smuggled a new term into the language, for according to the 1695 dictionary by the French philosopher and writer Pierre Bayle, “android” had been “an absolutely unknown word, & purely an invention of Naudé, who used it boldly as though it were established.” 8 It was a propitious moment for neologisms: Naudé’s term quickly infiltrated the emerging genre of dictionaries and encyclopedias. Bayle repeated it in the article on “Albert le Grand” in his dictionary. 9 Thence, “android” secured its immortality as the headword of an article — citing Naudé and Bayle — in the first volume of the supplement to the English encyclopedist Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopaedia . 10 In denying the existence of Albert’s android, Naudé had given life to the android as a category of machine.

“The Talking Head of Albertus Magnus”, plate from J. H. Pepper’s Cyclopædic Science Simplified (1885) — Source .

But the first actual android of the new, experimental-philosphical variety for which the historical record contains rich information — “android” in Naudé’s root sense, a working human-shaped assemblage of “necessary parts” and instruments — went on display on February 3, 1738. The venue was the opening of the annual Saint-Germain fair on Paris’ Left Bank. This android differed crucially from earlier musical automata, the figures on hydraulic organs and musical clocks, in that it really performed the complex task it appeared to perform, in this case, playing a flute, rather than merely making some suggestive motions. The device was, in this sense, a novelty, but it must have looked familiar to many of the fairgoers, being modeled on a well-known statue that stood in the entrance to the Tuileries Gardens and that is now at the Louvre Museum: Antoine Coysevox’s Shepherd Playing the Flute .

Like the statue, the android represented a faun, half man and half goat. The mechanical faun, like the marble one at the Tuileries, held a flute. The second faun, though, became suddenly animate and began to play its instrument, executing twelve tunes in succession. At first, skeptical spectators were persuaded this must be a music box, with an autonomous mechanism inside to produce the sound, while the external figure merely pretended to play. But no, the android actually did play a real flute, blowing air from its lungs (three sets of bellows), and exercising flexible lips, a supple tongue, and soft, padded fingers with a skin of leather. It was even reported that one could bring one’s own flute, and the machine would oblige by playing that one too. 11

The flute-playing android was the work of an ambitious young engineer named Jacques Vaucanson. The last of ten children of a Grenoble glove maker, Vaucanson had been born in the bitterly cold winter of 1709, at the waning of Louis XIV’s long reign, in the midst of a terrible famine and the bloodiest year of a war that France was losing. Emerging from this dark moment, Vaucanson’s life and the Enlightenment would take shape in tandem, and his work would become a point of reference for the world of letters.

As a child, he had liked to build clocks and repair watches. While a school boy, he had begun designing automata. After a brief stint as a novice in Lyon, ending when a church dignitary ordered Vaucanson’s workshop destroyed, he had come to Paris at the age of nineteen to seek his fortune. Thinking he might train as a doctor, he had attended some courses in anatomy and medicine, but had soon decided to apply these studies to a new area of research: re-creating living processes in machinery. The Flutist was the result of five years’ labor. 12 When it was finished, Vaucanson submitted a memoir explaining its mechanism to the Paris Academy of Sciences. This memoir contains the first known experimental and theoretical study of the acoustics of the flute. 13

“Vaucanson”, plate from Alfred des Essarts’ The Great Ancient and Modern Inventors (1864) — Source .

Following an eight-day debut at the Saint-Germain fair, Vaucanson moved his android to the Hôtel de Longueville, a gilded hall in a grand sixteenth-century mansion at the center of the city. There it attracted about seventy-five people a day, each paying a hefty entrance fee of three livres (roughly an average week’s wages for a Parisian worker). Among its audience were the members of the Paris Academy of Sciences, who traveled as a body to the Hôtel de Longueville to witness the android Flutist. 14 Greeting his public in groups of ten or fifteen, Vaucanson explained the Flutist’s mechanism and then set it to play its concert.

The reviews were effusive. “All of Paris is going to admire . . . the most singular and agreeable mechanical phenomenon perhaps ever seen”, wrote one reviewer, emphasizing that the android “really and physically plays the flute”. 15 The music-making statue, another agreed, was “the most marvelous piece of mechanics” that had ever been. 16 The abbé Pierre Desfontaines, a journalist and popular writer, advertising Vaucanson’s show to readers of his literary journal, described the insides of the Flutist as containing “an infinity of wires and steel chains . . . [which] form the movement of the fingers, in the same way as in living man, by the dilation and contraction of the muscles. It is doubtless the knowledge of the anatomy of man . . . that guided the author in his mechanics.” 17 In the article “Androïde” in the monumental Encylopédie , a universal compilation of knowledge edited by the philosopher and writer Denis Diderot and the mathematician and philosopher Jean d’Alembert, Vaucanson’s mechanical Flutist became the paradigm of an android. The article, written by d’Alembert, defines an android as a human figure performing human functions, and virtually the whole piece is devoted to the Flutist. 18

Soon after the Academy of Science members came to the Hôtel de Longueville, Vaucanson returned the visit to read a memoir on the design and function of his Flutist. 19 The android’s mechanism was moved by weights attached to two sets of gears. The bottom set turned an axle with cranks that powered three sets of bellows, leading into three windpipes, giving the Flutist’s lungs three different blowing pressures. The upper set of gears turned a cylinder with cams, triggering a frame of levers that controlled the Flutist’s fingers, windpipe, tongue, and lips. To design a machine that played a flute, Vaucanson had studied human flute players in minute detail. He had devised various ways of transmitting aspects of their playing into the design of his android. For example, to mark out measures he had had a flutist play a tune while another person beat time with a sharp stylus onto the rotating cylinder. 20

The following winter, Vaucanson added two more machines to the show. One was a second android musician, a life-size Provençal shepherd that played twenty minuets and other dance tunes on a pipe grasped in its left hand, while accompanying itself with its right on a drum slung over its shoulder. 21 The pipe had only three holes, which meant that the notes were produced almost entirely by the player’s variations of blowing pressure and tongue stops. Working to reproduce these subtleties in his automaton, Vaucanson found that human pipers employed a much greater range of blowing pressures than they themselves realized. The Piper also yielded another surprising discovery. Vaucanson had assumed that each note would be the product of a given finger position combined with a particular blowing pressure, but he discovered that the blowing pressure for a given note depended upon the preceding note, so that, for example, it required more pressure to produce a D after an E than after a C, obliging him to have twice as many blowing pressures as notes. 22 The higher overtones of the higher note resonate more strongly in the pipe than the lower overtones of the lower note; but pipers themselves were not aware of compensating for this effect, and the physics of overtones was explained only in the 1860s by Hermann von Helmholtz. 23

Detail from an illustration by Gravelot of Vaucanson’s automata: flutist, duck, and piper, ca. 1747–1773. While the bird could flap its wings and cavort duckishly, its main attraction was how it swallowed bits of grain and then excreted them in digested form — Source .

The android musicians did not just make music, a feat that music boxes had achieved for more than two centuries, but they did so using flexible lips, moving tongues, soft fingers, and swelling lungs. They were simulations of the human process of making music, and as the century wore on, the designers of such simulations turned toward the even more complex task of making machines that could mimic human speech.

In 1739, a year after Vaucanson’s duck made its public debut, a surgeon named Claude-Nicolas le Cat, published a description, now lost, of an “automaton man in which one sees executed the principal functions of the animal economy”, circulation, respiration, and “the secretions”. 24 It is not clear what became of this early project, but Le Cat returned to the idea in 1744 when, according to the proceedings of the Académie de Rouen, he read a sensational memoir there. A great crowd was assembled to hear it, and one witness reported, “Monsieur Le Cat told us of his plan for an artificial man . . . . His automaton will have respiration, circulation, quasi-digestion, secretion and chyle, heart, lungs, liver and bladder, and God forgive us, all that follows from it.” 25

Le Cat’s automaton man was to have “all the operations of a living man”, including not only “the circulation of the blood, the movement of the heart, the play of the lungs, the swallowing of food, its digestion, the evacuations, the filling of the blood vessels and their depletion by bleeding”, but also — apparently crossing the Cartesian boundary between mechanical body and rational soul — “even speech and the articulation of words”. 26

This idea, the possibility of simulating articulate speech, had generated a tradition of philosophical discussion over the preceding century. If some continued to find it a quixotic notion, it was in fact literally so: when Don Quixote himself encounters a talking bronze head (connected to a hidden human being), he is fully captivated by it, though his less suggestible squire, Sancho Panza, is unimpressed by its conversation. 27 Cervantes’s contemporary, the Spanish writer on magic, Martín del Río, also found it unreasonable to suppose “that an inanimate thing should produce the human voice and give answers to questions. For this requires life, and breath, and a perfect cooperation of the vital organs, and some discursive ability in the speaker.” 28

1662 print of an engraving by Martin Engelbrecht depicting Don Quixote inspecting the talking, enchanted head — Source .

Several decades later, some if not all the items on del Río’s list seemed possibly achievable in an artificial machine. Athanasius Kircher wrote in 1673, with regard to the legends of Albert the Great’s talking head and the ancient Egyptian speaking statues, that while certain skeptics believed these devices must have been “either non-existent or fraudulent or constructed with the help of the devil”, many others believed it was possible to build such a statue having throat, tongue and other organs of speech that would emit an articulated voice when it was activated by wind. Kircher included a sketch of a design for a talking figure. 29 His student, Gaspar Schott, also a prolific natural philosopher and engineer, adopted the same attitude, even alluding to a question-answering statue that Kircher was building for Queen Christina of Sweden. 30 No doubt the queen’s previous philosophy teacher, Descartes, had interested her in the relations between rational speech and a mechanical body.

Although the idea of simulated speech was not new, around the middle of the eighteenth century, experimental philosophers and mechanicians took a renewed interest in it. They assumed that speech was a bodily function akin to respiration or digestion — they did not explicitly distinguish the rational from the physiological aspects of speaking — and even the skeptics expressed their skepticism in connection with physiological details rather than principled objections. In his effusive review of Vaucanson’s Flutist in 1738, for example, the abbé Desfontaines predicted that articulate speech could never be produced in artificial machinery because the bodily process of speaking would remain impenetrably mysterious: one could never know precisely “what goes on in the larynx and glottis . . . [and] the action of the tongue, its folds, its movements, its varied and imperceptible rubbings, all the modifications of the jaw and the lips.” 31 Speaking was an essentially organic process, Desfontaines reckoned, and could only take place in a living throat.

Desfontaines was not alone in this belief: in this period, skeptics about the possibility of artificial speech generally argued that the human larynx, vocal tract, and mouth were too soft, supple, and malleable to be simulated mechanically. Around 1700, Denys Dodart, personal physician to Louis XIV, presented several memoirs to the Paris Academy of Sciences on the subject of the human voice, in which he argued that the voice and its modulations were caused by constrictions of the glottis, and that these were “inimitable by art”. 32 The writer and academician Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, who was then Perpetual Secretary of the Academy, commented that no wind instrument produced its sound by such a mechanism (the variation of a single opening) and that it seemed “altogether outside the realm of imitation . . . . Nature can use materials that are not at all at our disposal, and she knows how to use them in ways that we are not at all permitted to know.” 33

A last skeptic citing material difficulties was the philosopher and writer Antoine Court de Gébelin, who observed that “the trembling that spreads to all the parts of the glottis, the jigging of its muscles, their shock against the hyoid bone that raises and lowers itself, the repercussions that the air undergoes against the sides of the mouth . . . these phenomena” could only take place in living bodies. 34 On the other hand, there were plenty who disagreed. For example, the polemical materialist Julien Offray de La Mettrie took a look at Vaucanson’s Flutist and concluded that a speaking machine “could no longer be regarded as impossible”. 35

“Organs of the Voice”, plate from Antoine Court de Gébelin’s Primitive World (ca. 1773–1782) — Source .

During the last three decades of the century, several people took up the project of artificial speech. All of them assumed that the sounds of spoken language required a structure as similar as possible to the throat and mouth. This assumption, that a talking machine required simulated speaking organs, had not always dominated thinking about artificial speech. In 1648, John Wilkins, the first secretary of the Royal Society of London, had described plans for a speaking statue that would synthesize, rather than simulate, speech by making use of “inarticulate sounds”. He wrote, “We may note the trembling of water to be like the letter L, the quenching of hot things to the letter Z, the sound of strings, to the letter Ng [ sic ], the jirking of a switch to the letter Q, etc.” 36 But in the 1770s and 80s, builders of speaking machines mostly assumed that it would be impossible to create artificial speech without building a talking head: reproducing the speech organs and simulating the process of speaking.

The first to attempt such a machine was the English poet and naturalist Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) who in 1771 reported that he had “contrived a wooden mouth with lips of soft leather, and with a valve over the back part of it for nostrils.” Darwin’s talking head had a larynx made of “a silk ribbon . . . stretched between two bits of smooth wood a little hollowed.” It said “mama, papa, map and pam” in “a most plaintive tone”. 37

The next to simulate speech was a Frenchman, the abbé Mical, who presented a pair of talking heads to the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1778. The heads contained “several artificial glottises of different forms [arranged] over taut membranes”. By means of these glottises, the heads performed a dialogue in praise of Louis XVI: “The King gives peace to Europe”, intoned the first head; “Peace crowns the King with Glory”, replied the second; “and Peace makes the Happiness of the People”, added the first; “O King Adorable Father of your People their Happiness shows Europe the Glory of your Throne”, concluded the second head. 38

Illustration by E. A. Tilly depicting the abbé Mical’s pair of talking heads, ca. 1783 — Source .

The Paris gossip and memoirist Louis Petit de Bachaumont noted that the heads were life-size, but covered tastelessly in gold. They mumbled some words and swallowed certain letters; moreover, their voices were hoarse and their diction slow (and their conversation, he might have added, uninspiring).

Yet despite all this, they undeniably had “the gift of speech”. The academicians appointed to examine Mical’s talking heads agreed that their enunciation was “very imperfect” but granted their approval to the work anyhow because it was done in imitation of nature and contained “the same results that we admire in dissecting . . . the organ of the voice.” Bachaumont recorded that the academicians were so impressed with the abbé Mical that, on the occasion of the Montgolfière balloon demonstration at Versailles on September 19, 1783, in which a sheep, a rooster, and a duck became the world’s first aviation passengers, the six delegates from the Académie des sciences invited Mical to accompany their delegation and presented him to the king as the author of the celebrated talking heads. 39

The following year, probably at the instigation of the mathematician Leonhard Euler, the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences sponsored a prize competition to determine the nature of the vowels and to construct an instrument like vox humana organ pipes to express them. C. G. Kratzenstein, a member of the Academy, won the prize. He used an artificial glottis (a reed) and organ pipes shaped according to the situation of the tongue, lips, and mouth in the pronunciation of the vowels. 40

Several more people built talking heads before the turn of the century. Among them was a Hungarian engineer named Wolfgang von Kempelen who had been hired at the age of twenty-one by the Empress Maria Theresa to serve at the court of the Holy Roman Empire in Vienna. He had achieved fame in 1769 when, for the amusement of his patroness, Kempelen had built an android Turk that played an expert game of chess (by virtue of the expert human chess player cleverly hidden inside). A couple decades later, Kempelen set out to uncover the secret of articulate speech. In 1791, he published “a description of a speaking machine” in which he reported having attached bellows and resonators to musical instruments that resembled the human voice, such as oboes and clarinets; he had also tried, like Kratzenstein, modifying vox humana organ pipes. 41 Through twenty years of such attempts, he had been sustained, he said, by the conviction that “ speech must be imitable ”. The resulting apparatus had bellows for lungs, a glottis of ivory, a leather vocal tract with a hinged tongue, a rubber oral cavity, a mouth whose resonance could be altered by opening and closing valves, and a nose with two little pipes as nostrils. Two levers on the device connected with whistles and a third with a wire that could be dropped onto the reed. These enabled the machine to pronounce liquids and fricatives: Ss, Zs, and Rs. 42

Plates depicting the components of artificial and natural speech from Wolfgang von Kempelen’s The Mechanism of Speech (1791) — Source .

This machine produced an empirical finding reminiscent of Vaucanson’s discovery that the blowing pressure for a given note depended upon the preceding note. Kempelen reported that he had first tried to produce each sound in a given word or phrase independently but failed because the successive sounds needed to take their shape from one another: “The sounds of speech become distinct only by the proportion that exists among them, and in the linking of whole words and phrases.” Listening to his machine’s blurred speech, Kempelen perceived a further constraint upon the mechanization of language: the reliance of comprehension upon context. 43

Kempelen’s machine was only moderately successful. It reportedly prattled in a childish voice, reciting vowels and consonants. It pronounced words such as “Mama” and “Papa”, and uttered some phrases, such as “you are my friend—I love you with all my heart”, “my wife is my friend”, and “come with me to Paris”, but indistinctly. 44 Today the machine resides at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany. Kempelen and his supporters emphasized that the device was imperfect and explained that it was not so much a speaking machine in itself as a machine that demonstrated the possibility of constructing a speaking machine. 45

After this flurry of activity in the 1770s, 80s, and 90s, there was a decline in interest in speech simulation. A few people over the course of the nineteenth century, including the inventors Charles Wheatstone and Alexander Graham Bell, built their own versions of Kempelen’s and Mical’s speaking machines and of other talking heads from an earlier period. 46 But for the most part, designers of artificial speech turned their attention once again to speech synthesis rather than simulation: reproducing the sounds of human speech by other means rather than trying to reproduce the actual organs and physiological processes of speech. 47

In 1828, Robert Willis — a professor of applied mechanics at Cambridge who had earlier rejected the possibility of the Chessplayer’s intelligence — wrote disparagingly that most people who had investigated the nature of the vowel sounds “appear never to have looked beyond the vocal organs for their origin”, apparently assuming that the vowel sounds could not exist without being produced by the vocal organs. In other words, they had treated the vowels as “physiological functions of the human body” rather than as “a branch of acoustics”. In fact, Willis argued, vowel sounds could perfectly well be produced by other means. 48 Whether or not the vocal organs themselves could be simulated artificially became a separate question from whether the sounds of speech could be reproduced. As late as 1850, the French physiologist Claude Bernard wrote in his notebook: “The larynx is a larynx and the crystalline lens is a crystalline lens, that is to say their mechanical or physical conditions are realized nowhere but in the living organism.” 49

Photograph of Joseph Faber’s “Euphonia” talking machine, ca. 1846 — Source .

Disenchantment with speech simulation was so deep that when a German immigrant to America named Joseph Faber designed quite an impressive talking head in the late 1840s, he could not get anyone to take any notice of it. Faber’s talking head was modeled on Kempelen’s and Mical’s, but was far more elaborate. It had the head and torso of a man once again dressed like a Turk, and inside were bellows, an ivory glottis and tongue, a variable resonance chamber, and a mouth cavity with a rubber palate, lower jaw, and cheeks. The machine could pronounce all the vowels and consonants, and was connected by way of levers to a keyboard of seventeen keys, so that Faber could play it like a piano. He first exhibited the machine in New York City in 1844, where it aroused very little interest. He then took it to Philadelphia where he had no better luck. P. T. Barnum found Faber and his talking head there, renamed the machine the “Euphonia”, and took them on tour to London, but even Barnum could not make a success of it. Finally the Euphonia was exhibited in Paris in the late 1870s, where it was mostly ignored, and soon thereafter all traces of it disappear. 50

The moment for talking heads had passed. In the early part of the twentieth century, designers of artificial speech moved on from mechanical to electrical speech synthesis. 51 The simulation of the organs and process of speaking — of the trembling glottis, the malleable vocal tract, the supple tongue and mouth — was specific to the last decades of the eighteenth century, when philosophers and mechanicians and paying audiences were briefly preoccupied with the idea that articulate language was a bodily function: that Descartes’ divide between mind and body might be bridged in the organs of speech.

Notes Show Notes

• On the legend of Albertus Magnus’s artificial man, see Eugenio Battisti, L’antirinascimento (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1962), 226; and Sarah Higley, “The Legend of the Learned Man’s Android”, in *Retelling Tales: Essays in
• El Tostado notably adapted a story associated with Pope Sylvester. See Joseph R. Jones, “Historical Materials for the Study of the Cabeza Encantada Episode in Don Quijote II.62", Hispanic Review 41, no. 1 (1979): 91–92.
• El Tostado quoted in Gabriel Naudé, Apologie pour tous les grands hommes, qui ont esté accusez de magie (Paris: Eschart, 1669), 382–83. For the android’s dictation of Albert’s writings, see the article “Androïdes” in Ephraim Chambers et al., A Supplement to Mr. Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences , 2 vols. (London: W. Innys and J. Richardson, 1753).
• Naudé, Apologie , 385–88.
• Ibid., 389–90. Naudé is referring to the statue of Memnon on the Nile River that ancient authors said made sounds with the rising sun. See, for example, Callistratus, “On the Statue of Memnon”, in Elder Philostratus, Younger Philostratus, Callistratus , trans. Arthur Fairbanks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1931. On the speaking statue of Memnon, see also Paul Henry Stanhope, “The Statue of Memnon”, London Quarterly Review (April 1875): 278–84.
• Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique , 4 vols. (Amsterdam: P. Brunel, 1740), 1:131.
• Ibid., 1:130.
• See the article “Androïdes”, in Scott, Supplement .
• Jacques Vaucanson, Mécanisme du fluteur automate , trans. J. T. Desaguliers (Buren, the Netherlands: F. Knuf, 1979), 10–20. “One can substitute another flute entirely in the place of the one he plays”: Luynes, Mémoires, 2:12–13. Similarly, the abbé Desfontaines emphasized that it was “the fingers positioned variously on the holes of the flute that vary the tones . . . . In a word art has done here all that nature does in those who play the flute well. That is what can be seen and heard, beyond a doubt”, in Pierre Desfontaines, “Lettre CLXXX sur le Flûteur automate et l’Aristipe moderne”, Observations sur les écrits modern 12 (March 30, 1738), 339. On audiences’ initial disbelief that the flute player was actually playing his flute, see the reports cited in Alfred Chapuis and Edmond Droz, utomata: A Historical and Technological Study , trans. Alec Reid (Geneva: Editions du Griffon, 1958), 274; Alexander Buchner, Mechanical Musical Instruments , trans. Iris Urwin (London: Batchworth Press, 1959), 85–86; and David Lasocki’s preface to Vaucanson, Mécanisme du fluteur automate , [ii].
• Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, “Eloge de Vaucanson” (1782), in Œuvres de Condorcet , ed. Arthur O'Connor and Fraçois Arago, 12 vols (Paris: Firmin Didot frères, 1847–49), 2:643–60; André Doyon and Lucien Liaigre, Jacques Vaucanson, mècanicien de génie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967), chaps. 1–2.
• AS, Registre des procès-verbaux des séances for April 26 and 30, 1739.
• “Nouvelles à la main au marquis de Langaunay”, letter dated May 12, 1738, BNF, Ms Fr. 13700, no 2; Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 30–34, 41.
• Mercure de France (April 1738), 739; Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 51. On the vogue that Vaucanson launched, see also Paul Metzner, Crescendo of the Virtuoso: Spectacle, Skill, and Self-Promotion in Paris during the Age of Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), chapter 5.
• Le pour et contre (1738), 213; Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 53, 61.
• Desfontaines, “Lettre”, 340. The review of Vaucanson’s treatise on the flute player in the Journal des sçavans also emphasized the role of anatomical and physical research in informing the android’s design. See Journal des sçavans (1739), 441. See also Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 51.
• See d’Alembert’s 1751 article “Androïde”, in Diderot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie , 1:448.
• Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 41.
• See Vaucanson, Mécanisme du fluteur automate , 10–20. This process was the precursor of the procedure by which the first musical recordings were made, during the second and third decades of the twentieth century, when pianists such as Claude Debussy, Sergei Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, Arthur Rubinstein, and Scott Joplin marked out rolls for player pianos.
• Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 53, 61.
• Vaucanson, “Letter to the Abbé Desfontaines”, in Mécanisme du fluteur automate , 23– 24.
• Hermann von Helmholtz explained the effects of partials in his Lehre von den Tonempfindungen . I am grateful to Myles Jackson for helping me to figure out the causes underlying Vaucanson’s acoustical discovery.
• This description appeared in conjunction with Le Cat’s Traité de la saignée (1739) as its “experimental part”, in order “to confirm by experience” Le Cat’s theory of bleeding; see Doyon and Liaigre, “Méthodologie”, 298–99.
• Le Cornier de Cideville to Fontenelle, December 15, 1744, in Tougard, Documents , 1:52–54, at 53. See Doyon and Liaigre, “Méthodologie”, 300.
• Registre-Journal des Assemblées et Déliberations de l’Académie des sciences . . . établie on 1744: 3 (manuscript non classé de la Bibliothèque publique de Rouen), cited in Doyon and Liaigre, “Méthodologie”, 300.
• Cervantes, Don Quixote , trans. Samuel Putnam (New York: Viking, 1958), chap. 62. On this episode in the novel, see Jones, “Historical Materials”, 101–2.
• Martin Del Río, Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex (Venice, 1640), 26.
• Kircher, Phonurgia Nova , 161, quoted in Jones, “Historical Materials”, 99.
• Jones, “Historical Materials”, 99.
• Desfontaines, “Lettre”, 341.
• Denys Dodart, “Sur les causes de la voix de l’homme et de ses différens tons”, in Année 1700: Mémoires of Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences (Amsterdam: Gerard Kuyper, 1700): 244–93; Denys Dodart, “Supplément au Mémoire sur la voix et sur les tons”, in Année 1706: Mémoires of Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences (Amsterdam: Pierre de Coup, 1706): 136–48; Denys Dodart, “Suite de la première partie du Supplément”, in Année 1706: Mémoires of Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences *Amsterdam: Pierre de Coup, 1706), 388–410; and Denys Dodart, “Supplément au Mémoire sur la voix et sur les tons”, in Année 1707: Mémoires of Histoire de l’Académie royale des science (Amsterdam: Pierre de Coup, 1707): 66–81. For Fontenelle’s commentary on Dodart’s memoirs, see Fontenelle’s three articles “Sur la formation de la voix” (1700, 1706, and 1707) in the volumes cited above.
• Fontenelle, “Sur la formation de la voix” (1707), 20.
• Antoine Court de Gébelin, Le monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne , 9 vols. (Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1773–82), 2:83–84.
• La Mettrie, L’homme machine , 190.
• John Wilkins, Mathematicall Magick, or, The Wonders That May Be Performed by Mathematicall Geometry (London: Sa. Gellibrand, 1648), 177–78.
• Charles Darwin, The Temple of Nature; or, The Origin of Society (London: For J. Johnson by T. Bensley, 1803): 119–20.
• Têtes parlantes inventées et exécutées par M. l’abbé Mical. (Extrait d’un ouvrage qui a pour titre: Système de prononciation figurée, applicable à toutes les langues et exécuté sur les langues française et anglaise) , VZ-1853, BNF; Rivarol, “Lettre à M. le president de”, 20–24; Rivarol, Discours , 79–82; Bachaumont, Mémoires , 11: 237, 13: 270, 26: 214–216; Séris, Langages et machines , 245; Chapuis and Gélis, Monde , 2:204–206. According to Rivarol, Mical also built “an entire Concert in which the figures, as big as life, made Music from morning till evening”, “Lettre à M. le president de”, 29.
• AS, Registre des procès-verbaux des séances for September 3, 1783; Bachaumont, Mémoires , 26: 214–16.
• Thomas L. Hankins and Robert J. Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 188–89, 198; Jean-Pierre Séris, Langages et machines à l’âge classique (Paris: Hachette, 1995), 247.
• Kempelen, Mécanisme de la parole , 394–464. On Kempelen’s and others’ attempts to simulate human speech in the last third of the eighteenth century, see also Hankins and Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , chap. 8; and Séris, Langages et machines , 245– 46.
• Kempelen, Mécanisme de la parole , 395–400, 405, 415–59.
• Ibid., 401.
• Ibid., 463.
• Karl Gottlieb Windisch, Inanimate Reason; or, A Circumstantial Account of that Astonishing Piece of Mechanism, De Kempelen’s Chess-Player (London: S. Bladon, 1784), 49.
• On Wheatstone’s and Bell’s reproductions, see James L. Flanagan, “Voices of Men and Machines”, in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 51 (1972): 1375–87; James L. Flanagan, Speech Analysis, Synthesis, and Perception (Berlin: Springer, 1965), 166–71; M. R. Schroeder, “A Brief History of Synthetic Speech” Speech Communication 13 (1993): 231– 37; and Hankins and Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , 218–19.
• Hermann von Helmholtz, for example, built a machine using tuning forks and resonance chambers to produce the vowel sounds, described in Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music , trans. Alexander J. Ellis (New York: Dover, 1954), 399.
• Robert Willis, “On the Vowel Sounds, and on Reed Organ-Pipes.” Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 3 (1830): 231–68.
• Claude Bernard, Cahier de notes, 1850–1860 , ed. Mirko Dražen Grmek (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), 171. This was probably in response to the assertion of Bernard’s mentor, François Magendie, that “I see in the lung a bellows, in the trachea, a vent, in the glottis a reed . . . . We have for the eye an optical apparatus, for the voice a musical instrument, for the stomach a living retort.” François Magendie, Phénomènes physiques de la vie: Leçons professées au collège de France , 4 vols (Paris: J.-B. Baillière, 1842).
• See David Lindsay, “Talking Head”, in Invention and Technology (Summer 1997): 57–63; and Hankins and Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , 214–16.
• Cf. Hankins and Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , 216, where the authors identify a partial and passing return to “more humanoid apparatus” in the “last years of the nineteenth century”.

Public Domain Works

• Internet Archive
• Library of Congress French original, 1738
• Oregon Health and Science University Library
• Internet Archive French translation
• Project Gutenberg

Further Reading

A collection of essays examining efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to understand living beings by comparison with inanimate mechanisms.

An exploration into how the automata of early modern Europe can be seen as models for the new science of living things, tracing questions of science and agency through Descartes, Leibniz, Lamarck, and Darwin, among others.

The eighteenth century saw the creation of a number of remarkable mechanical androids that served as illustrations of the sentimental culture of a civil society rather than expressions of anxiety about the mechanisation of humans by industrial technology.

The Public Domain Review receives a small percentage commission from sales made via the links to Bookshop.org (10%) and Amazon (4.5%). Thanks for supporting the project! For more recommended books, see all our “ Further Reading ” books, and browse our dedicated Bookshop.org stores for US and UK readers.

Jessica Riskin is Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University. Her teaching, research and writing focus on the history of modern science, ideas, culture and politics. She is the author most recently of The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument Over What Makes Living Thing Tick and is currently writing a book about Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the French naturalist who coined the term “biology” around 1800 and developed the first theory of evolution.

Excerpted and adapted from “The First Android”, a chapter from The Restless Clock by Jessica Riskin. © 2016 by Jessica Riskin. Reprinted with permission of The University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.

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Guest Essay

Men Fear Me, Society Shames Me, and I Love My Life

By Glynnis MacNicol

Ms. MacNicol is a writer, a podcast host and the author of the forthcoming memoir “I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself.”

I was once told that the challenge of making successful feminist porn is that the thing women desire most is freedom.

If that’s the case, one might consider my life over the past few years to be extremely pornographic — even without all the actual sex that occurred. It definitely has the makings of a fantasy, if we allowed for fantasies starring single, childless women on the brink of turning 50.

It’s not just in enjoying my age that I’m defying expectations. It’s that I’ve exempted myself from the central things we’re told give a woman’s life meaning — partnership and parenting. I’ve discovered that despite all the warnings, I regret none of those choices.

Indeed, I am enjoying them immensely. Instead of my prospects diminishing, as nearly every message that gets sent my way promises they will — fewer relationships, less excitement, less sex, less visibility — I find them widening. The world is more available to me than it’s ever been.

Saying so should not be radical in 2024, and yet, somehow it feels that way. We live in a world whose power structures continue to benefit from women staying in place. In fact, we’re currently experiencing the latest backlash against the meager feminist gains of the past half-century. My story — and those of the other women in similar shoes — shows that there are other, fulfilling ways to live.

It is disconcerting to enjoy oneself so much when there is so much to assure you to expect the opposite, just as it is strange to feel so good against a backdrop of so much terribleness in the world. But with age (hopefully) comes clarity.

Fifty is a milestone. And the fact my 50th birthday lands on or around some other significant 50ths has brought some things into focus. Last year was the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This year is the 50th of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which may be less well known but remains significant: It allowed women for the first time to have bank accounts and credit cards in their own name, not needing a male signature.

That my birth date landed between the passing of these two landmark laws makes it easier for me to see that the life I’m living is a result of women having authority over both their bodies and their finances. I represent a cohort of women who lead lives that do not require us to ask permission or seek approval. I have availed myself of all the choices available to me, and while the results come with their own set of risks, they have been enormously satisfying.

The timing of my birthday also helps me see the violent rollback of women’s rights happening right now as a response to the independence these legal rights afforded women. Forget about the horror of being alone and middle-aged — there is nothing more terrifying to a patriarchal society than a woman who is free. That she might be having a better time without permission or supervision is downright insufferable.

My entry into middle age certainly had the makings of an unpleasant story.

Like many, I spent the early months of the pandemic by myself. It was the type of solitary confinement that popular science, and certain men with platforms, enjoy reminding us will be the terrible future that awaits a woman who remains single for too long. I went untouched by anyone. Unsmelled, too, which you might think is a strange thing to note, but it’s an even stranger thing to experience. Unseen except by the building exterminator and the remaining doormen of the Upper West Side who gave distant friendly greetings on my evening walks around Covid-empty New York.

Alone, unmarried, childless, past my so-called prime. A caricature, culture would have it, a fringe identity; a tragedy or a punchline, depending on your preference. At the very least a cautionary tale.

By August 2021, I was desperate — not for partnership but for connection. I bought a ticket to Paris, a place where I’d spent much of my free time before the pandemic and where I had a group of friends.

Paris, I reminded myself, prioritizes pleasure. I dived in. Cheese, wine, friendships, sex — and repeat.

At first it was shocking. I was ill prepared to get what I wanted, what it seemed I had summoned. There were moments when I wondered whether I should be ashamed. I had also never felt so free and so fully myself. I felt no shame or guilt, only the thrill that came with the knowledge I was exercising my freedom.

These days, generally speaking, there is little in cinema or literature, let alone the online world, to suggest that when you are a woman alone (forget about a middle-aged woman), things will go your way, as I have often experienced.

There have been better times. In the 1980s, sitcoms were stacked with starring women for whom men were a minor-character concern — “Designing Women,” “Murphy Brown,” “The Golden Girls” — all of which, if they premiered today (and that’s a big if), would feel radical. Later there was “Girlfriends.” Even “Sex and the City,” with its often regressive marriage plotting, remains surprisingly modern in its depictions of adult friendship and sexual mores. In each case, just as it looked as if these narratives might begin to fully take root in the real world, the women largely went back inside (or into body bags, in the case of many “Law & Order” plotlines). By the early aughts we were housewives again, real and imagined.

I suspect that a lot of this backlash is connected to the terror that men experienced at discovering that they are less necessary to women’s fulfillment than centuries of laws and stories have allowed them to believe. That terror is abundantly apparent today: From Harrison Butker’s commencement speech suggesting that women may find more fulfillment in marriage and children than in having a career, to the Supreme Court once again debating access to abortion to the push to roll back no-fault divorce laws: All are efforts to return women to a place where others can manage their access to … well, just about everything.

It’s in this light that my enjoyment begins to feel radical. Come fly with me. There’s no fear here.

Glynnis MacNicol is a writer, a podcast host and the author of the forthcoming memoir “I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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It's more than just a parasocial relationship: BTS and their impact on my mental health

Listening to bts may not have cured my depression, but it helped me get through it, by lily doton.

2018 was one of the worst years of my life.

I was in my second semester of college, which was supposed to be part of the "best years of your life," but for me was anything but. I was severely depressed and could barely get myself out of bed to eat — let alone show up to my classes and do my homework. I felt isolated and lost. 

And then I found a love for K-Pop boy group BTS .

BTS, who you've likely heard of by now, consists of seven members — RM, Jin, SUGA, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook. When I got invested in BTS, they had just started blowing up in the west the year before. 

When I watched a video of one of their live performances of "Answer: Love Myself" for the first time, I started sobbing.

And despite what people often think, they weren't important to me because of how handsome they are or because Jungkook is boyfriend material. It wasn't because of the fashion and the dyed hair, or even because of the elaborate choreography and jaw-dropping performances. 

While those are pretty valid reasons to love K-pop, and definitely helped grab my attention, the reason BTS became so special to me is less surface-level. 

I had heard of them before. In high school, my best friend loved K-pop, especially BTS, and I had listened to and liked some of their songs. But as a Korean adoptee growing up in Vermont , one of the whitest states in America, I wasn't eager to make myself come across as any more Asian than I already was.

When we both went away to college, we kept texting. Sharing details of our day, talking about how hard things were.

Even though my mental health was declining, I was also beginning to come to terms with what being Korean American meant to me. It had always made me uncomfortable, made me feel "other," but I wanted to know more now.

And when BTS came up again in conversation, I decided to finally really look into them. 

Discovering the Bangtan Boys

I started with reading translations of the lyrics as I listened. Then I watched all their music videos. Soon, I was making my way through every live performance and every interview I could find and even going down the rabbit hole of watching fan-made compilation videos on YouTube. 

When I watched a video of one of their live performances of "Answer: Love Myself" for the first time, I started sobbing. I didn't even need to understand all of the lyrics — just hearing the crowd sing, "You've shown me I have reasons I should love myself," along with the seven of them on stage struck me. 

I was struggling to like myself enough to take care of myself in the simplest ways, but soon enough I was singing along:

I'm looking for myself again But I don't wanna die anymore Me, who used to be sad Me, who used to be hurt It'll make me more beautiful

BTS was not only my connection to the culture I had resisted and ignored my entire life, but also became a light for me when everything else felt bleak. 

At first, I might not have believed it when I was singing along to Jin's solo song "Epiphany" and declaring:

I'm the one I should love in this world Shining me, precious soul of mine I finally realized, so I love me Not so perfect but so beautiful

But I began to. 

It sounds corny, but they helped me through that extremely difficult period of my life in a way that nothing else really could. Listening to BTS didn't cure my depression , but the openness in their lyrics provided me with a sense of comfort and reassurance that I desperately needed. 

The song that made the biggest impact on me, and still does, is from RM's 2018 solo mixtape "mono." In "지나가 (everythingoes)," RM repeats over and over "It all passes, someday, for sure, certainly / It passes (Everything goes)." 

But instead of being a message of toxic positivity, he goes on to say that rather than using "unclear words saying to have strength" and "instead of the lies that it's all just the way things are," he prays that "like the winds it will pass." 

It may be hard to understand why BTS fans are so ride-or-die for them, but moments like that are part of the reason why. It's not just me who's been affected by them this deeply — seeing their impact is as easy as searching "BTS Answer: Love Myself reaction" on YouTube or googling "how BTS changed my life." 

Embracing the community

I first saw the widespread impact they've had when I rejoined Twitter and rebranded as a stan account. 

BTS was not only my connection to the culture I had resisted and ignored my entire life, but also became a light for me when everything else felt bleak.

At the time, the BTS members didn't have their own individual Instagram accounts, and Twitter was the place for updates, selfies and personal posts from each of them. Their Twitter account currently has 48.4 million followers and a quick scroll through will show you stan account after stan account dedicated specifically to them, with edited photos of one of the members as the icon and a handle that references their lyrics. 

It may appear that those accounts are faceless and impersonal, but when I was feeling isolated at a new school , I found a community there. There are countless examples of how toxic stan Twitter can be, but it doesn't always have to be. I joined group chats to talk about favorite albums, rehash the latest performance and dissect lyrics, and I ended up making friends across the world. 

It's easy to look at all of this and only see how it contributes to what we've come to know as the parasocial relationship between celebrities and their fans. Especially within the K-pop community, when fans do things like spend thousands of dollars on albums for a short video call, stay up all hours of the night to catch a livestream and even buy expensive and elaborate gifts for their bias on their birthday. 

While this certainly exists within BTS' fanbase, what sets the band apart is that they've consistently shared their personal struggles and journey to self-love throughout their career, in their music but also in interviews, livestreams and letters to fans. 

In 2016, SUGA released a solo mixtape under his alter ego Agust D in which he details his struggles with depression and OCD and how he's gotten treatment for it. 

In 2017, RM put out his song "Always" on SoundCloud that contains the lyrics:

One morning, when I opened my eyes I wished that I was dead I wish someone killed me In this loud silence I live to understand the world but the world has never understood me, why

In a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly , SUGA emphasized the importance of open dialogue about mental health . "I think for not just us but other celebrities, if they talk about it openly — if they talk about depression for example like it's the common cold, then it becomes more and more accepted if it's a common disorder like the cold," he said. "More and more, I think artists or celebrities who have a voice should talk about these problems and bring it up to the surface."

The members' willingness to speak about their own mental health struggles and counseling is not only important because it normalizes it for their fans, but because it sheds a light on mental health in Korea and within the K-pop community. 

According to The Korea Times , South Korea has held the highest suicide rate of OECD nations for almost 20 years, with a suicide rate of 24.1 deaths per 100,000 people as of 2021. 

Just this April, 25-year-old ASTRO boyband member Moon Bin passed away by suicide. This comes after other losses that have hit the K-pop community, like SHINee's Jonghyun who was only 27 when he passed in 2017. In 2019, 25-year-old former f(x) member and actress Sulli also passed away from suicide, with 28-year-old Goo Hara from Kara following just weeks after.

With far too many examples of young people in the K-pop industry, and Korea in general, taking their own lives, it just makes publicly speaking to these issues even more important. Especially when it's being communicated to a fanbase like BTS' that consists of so many young people.

As much as I love K-pop, I can see how damaging the industry can be. It's rightfully criticized for setting impossibly high beauty standards , highlighting issues with fatphobia and colorism, and for the immense pressure put on idols to be "perfect" both while they're performing and when they're offstage. 

With these kinds of standards, BTS being willing to acknowledge that they're human — that they struggle, question themselves and sometimes need help to get through it — is essential. At the height of fame, with the eyes of the world on them, they choose to be vulnerable and show others that they can do the same. 

The flaws in the industry still exist, but there's no doubt that BTS will leave a lasting impact.

If you are in need of help, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Hours of operation are 24/7 and it's confidential.

about this topic

• Representation heals: How watching K-dramas lifted the weight of white supremacy and freed my tongue
• "Oegugin" influencers are rising to stardom in Korea. But there's a dark side to pop-nationalism
• K-dramas cured my prejudice against Asian men

Lily Doton is an intern at Salon and will graduate from Castleton University in May. Though her true love is K-Pop, she is studying Media and Communication with a concentration in journalism and a minor in film studies. She is passionate about telling stories and seeking out Asian representation, whether that's in movies, shows, music or writing.

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