What's Love Got to Do with It

Kristie Castle

ENG 112

Gilliam

July 10, 2015

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

According to Merriam-Webster, a few of the many ways love can be defined are “a (1) strong affection arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child> (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates>.” Even the dictionary agrees that love can be of different degrees and for a variety of reasons. These are all legitimate examples of love and each one takes on a slightly different meaning. Is love the correct term to describe the feeling one gets when they feel they have met the person they can’t live without? In some situations this is probably the closest word there is to embody that emotion. But sometimes love is taken to a darker extreme. While it may be true that the emotion was born of love, once it takes on a possessive and consuming form, I would argue that what is left in its place, isn’t love at all.

My position is that the very foundation of true love is that it must be unconditional. Even if love is not returned, in a scenario where love is real it will always be proven by the release of that person to go find their happiness. It goes without saying that love should never involve physical or verbal abuse, yet love is the emotion most accused of being behind this behavior. In Raymond Carver’s short story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” he examines this type of relationship. In the midst of the banter between the couples, the character who had been in the abusive relationship, Terri, insists that although her ex had been abusive, he had loved her. This is part of the pattern of an abusive relationship. When abuse becomes accepted as normal behavior, the abused person in the relationship is made to believe that the abuser behaves this way because of love. Even though I do not believe that you...