Mark Berger
Mrs. Morais
English 101 Sec 012
February 1, 2010
Essay #1 First Draft: Feeling Love
What is love? How do we know when we actually find true love? These questions and many more about love have been getting asked since the start of time. Not all of these questions can ever get answered;because everyone has their own take on what it is and how to find it. Some people think that true love doesn’t even exist. Love is something that has been used as the main theme in many different books, movies, and music for as long as all of these things have existed. This is definitely the case in the short story “Man and Wife” by Katie Chase. It is a story about a nine-year-old girl named Mary Ellen. A businessman named Mr. Middleton, whom she only met once before at a party, asked her parents for Mary Ellen’s hand in marriage. Mary Ellen would go live with Mr. Middleton and take of him and when her parent’s were old and need to be taken care of, Mr. Middleton would do that for them. Her parent’s agreed to it and so at the young age of nine, Mary Ellen was about to become a wife. But is this really love? Even though Mary Ellen and Mr. Middleton get married, do they actually have true love for each other? In many places around the world, arranged marriages are just a part of society.
In these places it isn’t unusual for young girls to be given away to marry older men. But, just because these people are married, I don’t think that they actually are in love. For me, true love is something that you can be forced into having. You need to work towards something as special and rare as love. Marriage is something that happens only when two adults are ready to spend the rest of their lives together. People can’t truly be happy in marriage without love. It would just be fake, and even though they might say they love each other, they aren’t sincere. In the story, Katie Chase makes it seem like this is actually what love is. That people can have true love even if it is forced on them. I think that this might look like her interpretation of love, but that she really is trying to make a completely different point. I believe Katie Chase is trying to saythe exact opposite of what is talked about in the book. Although the book portrays the marriage between Mr. Middleton and Mary Ellen has love in it, Katie Chase wants us to realize from this that true love can’t be forced. The marriage between them might look on the surface to have love, but because of some things they say and infer throughout the story make me believe that they don’t actually love each other. Which is the exact point Katie Chase wants to make. That love can’t be forced, and when it is, you never truly will be happy. True love takes time and work, and when you rush the process, love isn’t actually there.
The Essay on Love and Marriage in the 18th century
Our aim in this paper will be to analyze and discuss the different ways in which love and marriage were dealt with during the eighteenth century and to what extent these two terms were linked together or considered as opposite. To accomplish this matter we are going to focus our attention on several works that are representative from this period and that reflect in an accurate way the social ...
There are many things in the story “Man and Wife” by Katie Chase that show the way she feels about love. When Mary Ellen got asked to marry Mr. Middleton, she was only nine years old. She was forced into the marriage, robbing her of every finding true love. Not only did it take away that, but it also took away her childhood. We see this in the story when they first let her know about her upcoming marriage. Her father starts pouring champagne for everyone, including Mary Ellen. Her mother says “Our own little girl, to be a women. Bottoms up”(Chase 52).
Since she is only nine years old, she won’t be able to experience things that normal kids get to do. She has to stop going to school to take care of the house and her husband. She was forced to do this, not by choice, which isn’t right. When her parents let her drink the champagne, it also signifies her step from being a child to being a wife. Since she is about to get married, her parents let her drink, even though she is way to young to be doing things like that. This is exactly like her marriage. Just like drinking champagne, she is way to young to be getting marriage. One second she was a kid riding her bike with her friend, and the next second she is drinking champagne and finding out she is about to get married. She is getting forced into doing all of these things thatshe shouldn’t have to do at such a young age. Because they are forcing her to do this, I don’t think it is possible for there to be real love in her relationship. Even after they have been together for a while, I would think that she still regrets getting into this situation. She never knows what could have been if she didn’t marry Mr. Middleton, but since she had to, that’s the only kind of love she knows. Although she might make herself believe it’s love, Chase wants us to see how wrong it is and that you shouldn’t force someone into a relationship.
The Term Paper on Love and Marriage
Love and Marriage 2 Love and Marriage: A Relationship Made to Last Marriage is the institution whereby a man and a woman are joined in a special social and legal relationship for making a home and raising a family as stated in the Webster New Ideal Dictionary. Human Minds stated the median age of first time bridegrooms was 26.7, and of first time brides, 24.5 years-a rise of three years since 1975 ...
Another point that Chase makes about love is that since it forced love and they had to sign a contract thatMary Ellen isn’t really going to get to experience the feeling of being a true wife. Nowadays, women aren’t just stereotypical housewives. They go out and get jobs just as good as any man can get. But since this marriage was forced, Mary Ellen doesn’t have that opportunity. This is shown when her mother says,“What I’m trying to say is, you’ll belong to him. You’ll have to be very obedient- not that you haven’t always been a good girl”(Chase 56).
In a marriage, neither the husband nor the wife is above each other. They are both equal and have the same rights. But in this case, Mary Ellen isn’t. She has to quit school to take care of her husband and the house. All she has to do is clean and cook, which although is something that is necessary, shouldn’t be her full time job. She shouldn’t have to do house work all day. She is getting robbed of ever having a chance of knowing the feeling of succeeding at something other than washing the dishes. Chase wants us to see how wrong this is. Women shouldn’t be stuck at home all day. If they are, they will feel like they aren’t worth anything other then being able to cook dinner. It’s hard to have love in a relationship when one spouse doesn’t treat the other equally. This all relates to the main point Chase is making that true love can’t be rush and that when it is, love actually isn’t there. Because she is being forced to do this, she doesn’t really know how to love her husband. All the things in life that people dream about doing, like getting a job and being successful, are getting flushed down the drain for her. Her whole love is being forced, by having to do all these things that a person of that age shouldn’t have to do.
The Essay on Romeo And Juliet Love Juliets True
I consider myself a hopeless romantic. I have hopes and dreams of finding my true love. Although I would like for my true love to say he would die for me and would never want to live without me, and me the same for him, I know realistically that this would never be. There is no better example of this love than in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In this tale, their love was true and they ...
One final thing Chase wants us to see about her view on love is that since love can’t be rushed, when it is you don’t really even know the person who you supposedlylove. How are you supposed to love someone if they are basically a complete stranger. In the story, when Mary Ellen is told she is getting married to Mr. Middleton, she only has met him one time in her life. Her parents had a party and she had to serve punch. Mr. Middleton talked to her for a little while, but that was the only time she met him. She does get to know him a little bit before they actually have the wedding, but it isn’t enough tosay that she truly loves him. One time Mary Ellen was think about her marriage and she said to herself, “What were we going to say to each other when we were, one day, inevitably, alone” (Chase 60).
Before most people take the step to marriage, they usually get to know each other pretty well. The fact that she doesn’t know what she would talk to her future husband about when they are alone shows how rushed this whole process is. There is way to big of an age gap between them, about thirty years. She is just a child while he a successful businessman. If they have nothing in common and nothing to talk about, how are they supposedto love each other? True love can’t exist in a relationship like the one they are in.
True love is something that is so rare that people don’t even know how it feels until it happens to them. It’s something you look for you whole life and once you find your true love, the person you want to be with for the rest of your life, you are so happy. This is the opposite of what occurred in Katie Chase’s short story “Man and Wife”. The couple wasrushed into a marriage, one of them being forced to do it. They will never get to experience the beauty of something as amazing as true love. Chase wants us to see that by rushing into marriage, not treating your spouse equally, and having nothing in common with your husband or wife is a bad recipe for disaster. Love can never exist in a relationship like the on in her story. Overall, she wants people to take their time finding the one they love, because once you do, it will be the best thing that has ever happened to you.
The Essay on Love And Marriage In Pride And Prejudice
Q. Discuss Jane Austen's presentation of love and marriage in Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen's nineteenth century novel, "Pride and Prejudice" focuses primarily on the theme of love and marriage in an English society. Austen lived in a time when a woman's reputation and future, both socially and economically was fully dependant upon finding a husband. In "Pride and Prejudice," Austen presents ...
