Perhaps pathos is a more precise answer to this issue of the definition of love than all
the logic we can muster.
Ironically, we are told immediately that Mel is a cardiologist—a heart doctor—
and that this ethos gives him the right to talk about love. He wants to think of love as
the Greek agape, as something spiritual. His wife, Terri, by contrast, defines love in
the context of an abusive relationship that she had in the past with a man named Ed.
She can understand the sort of passion that leads one to kill or to die for what she calls
love, and her insistence that Ed loved her implies that something is wanting in the sort
of love Mel offers. Though Ed is not present and is, in fact, dead, his definition of love
is the one with which the characters must contend. The narrator, Nick, and his wife,
Laura, still bask in the warmth of newlywed bliss; their love is comfortably physical;
they touch and kiss from time to time in response to the conversation. And love gets a
bit too easy as the neighbors reassure each other that they are loved, cheapening the
word love in the glow of the gin they are drinking.
Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” allows us to see little
of the motivation of its characters, letting us eavesdrop on a conversation. William
Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” also limits our vision, depicting the title character as a
statue or an idol observed from afar by a close-minded town. The characters who hurt
others—Ed and Emily—are made frantic and desperate by something in their lives,
and their strong emotions overflow into their personal relationships. Because we hear of
Ed in the context of a discussion of love, we may accept the motive of his violence as
connected with the power of his immature love for Terri, but perceptive readers will
JEALOUS LOVE: CRITICAL COMMENTARIES ON A PLAY (p. 544)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Othello (p. 545)
Jealousy is obviously a central motif in Shakepeare’s Othello. Brabantio, the father of
Othello’s eloping bride, jealously objects to the marriage, standing at first on his rights
as a noble parent to choose his daughter’s spouse, then angrily washing his hands of
her. Roderigo—aptly tagged in the dramatis personae a “gulled gentleman”—lusts
basely and jealously for Desdemona’s body, ruining himself financially seeking to buy
her favors through the deceiving Iago. Bianca, the prostitute who loves Cassio, goes
into a jealous rage when she finds Desdemona’s handkerchief planted in Cassio’s
room, again through the machinations of Iago. Iago himself may be jealous of Othel-
lo, as he claims, thinking that Othello has “done his office” as a husband, committing
adultery with Iago’s wife, Emilia. It is more likely, however, that Iago’s jealousy is con-
nected more closely to ambition than to lust. He is plainly jealous of Cassio, who has
been promoted as Othello’s lieutenant over Iago, and arguably of Othello himself, a
gifted military leader despite what Iago implicitly sees as Othello’s ethnic inferiority.
The most jealous of all, of course, is Othello, whose inexperience in affairs of love
(among other things) makes him vulnerable to Iago’s demonic whispering and ma-
nipulation of people and situations.
is the one who points out the great harm done when one’s “good name” is stolen
even as he goes about smearing the reputations of others, leading ultimately to their
deaths. The movie O, released in 2001, picks up on the schoolyard connection by
changing Othello from a general to the star basketball player, and the only African
American student, at an exclusive prep school. Few readers, no matter their age,
could withstand the logic of such a relentless and conscienceless enemy pretending
to be a trustworthy friend.
It has been said that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Readers may
be surprised that Othello’s love can turn so quickly to hate. But he feels betrayed.
Because he cares so deeply, fearing that “chaos” would accompany his loss of her love
once he has it, the loss is more profound and the depth of his hatred more intense.
Even acknowledging this, he still seems to love her, even as he kills her, viewing her
death as his duty. He wants to make her soul right with God, so that his killing of her
will not result in the loss of her soul, but he kills her anyway when he thinks she is
unrepentant. Perhaps we can question the depth of Othello’s love because
Desdemona seems to love him more loyally and maturely. The chaos of Othello’s
feelings is evident in the lines Shakespeare gives to him in the final scenes of the play.
Jealousy causes Othello to kill both his beloved and himself: he is utterly destroyed by
his belief in Iago’s lies. Jealousy makes its victim mad, taking away his logic and self-
control. Gossip and slander hurt not only individuals but families, perhaps even
CRITICAL COMMENTARIES
A. C. BRADLEY, The Noble Othello (p. 633)
MILLICENT BELL, Othello’s Jealousy (p. 638)
JEFFRIE G. MURPHY, Jealousy, Shame, and the Rival (p. 646)
One of our “Making Comparisons” questions asks students to consider how their un-
derstanding of the play squares with the critical essays’ classifications of Othello’s jeal-
ousy as psychological or philosophical. The question explains that Jeffrie Murphy fo-
cuses on jealousy as having a psychological basis, arguing that jealousy is “the fear that
one will lose the love of a person with whom one is psychologically identified.” He
later adds shame into the mix of jealousy. Millicent Bell, however, seems to think
Othello’s jealousy has more to do with philosophy, with appearances and reality, with
the distinction “between seeming and true seeing”—indeed, with the very nature of
truth itself. Because the culture of the twenty-first-century reader is permeated with
the “common sense” of pop psychology, student readers may understand Murphy’s
psychological analysis more at first reading than they do Bell’s discussion of philosoph-
ical and legal perceptions of reality. However, it will pay off to consider Bell’s argu-
ments in some detail. Othello becomes jealous because he believes the “evidence”
that seems to be piling up before his eyes. We can easily see how a person’s insecuri-
ties and self-esteem issues can warp his perceptions, but to reduce Othello to a Jerry
Springer caricature, as some inexperienced readers tend to do, does disservice to the
Our excerpt from A. C. Bradley’s analysis of Othello’s character begins in the
middle of his essay, and it would be good to read to students a sentence from the
paragraph that immediately precedes it: “Othello’s nature is all of one piece. His trust,
when he trusts, is absolute.” Whatever Othello does, he does it with 100 percent of his
being. Whereas Bell focuses on intellectual changes in Othello’s worldview and
Murphy focuses on underlying reasons for his behavior based on psychoanalytic
concepts, Bradley takes a more traditionally humanistic view, arguing that it is
important to see that Othello is not stupid, misogynistic, or cruel by nature. Iago has
everyone fooled, and Bradley insists that “any man” would have been devastated by
the information that Iago presents to him as truth. Bradley maintains that Othello is
not an “essentially jealous man” and that up to a certain point, “there is not a syllable
to be said against Othello.” Bradley’s vocabulary echoes Genesis: “The Othello of the
Fourth Act is Othello in his fall. His fall is never complete, but he is much changed.”
This quotation from Bradley is a striking one because the critic’s worldview becomes
clear: Character is something essential to a person, and even in his most fallen state,
Othello is a noble man for whom the audience may feel “mingled love and pity.” He
is Everyman. For Bradley, analyzing Othello brings out issues of evaluation.
Bell’s use of a scene from one of the filmed versions of Othello aptly illustrates her
point that the play can best be understood as a matter of Othello’s perceptions of truth:
“The movie’s powerful language of the visible provides—delusively even to us, though
we know Othello is deluded—that ultimate visibility which goes beyond the evidence
Iago has manipulated to ‘prove’ that Othello’s love is a whore.” Viewing this filmed
version with a class, instructors should warn students that this scene is not really taking
simultaneously connected with his mother and his wife. Therefore, when he thinks he
has been betrayed by his wife, Othello again feels the loss of his mother. Moving on to
the issue of shame, Murphy adds further understanding, because many readers will
recognize the human need to be judged positively by the loved one and by peers and
community. Although we have pulled a few relevant quotations from the essays,
student readers will choose their own. Instructors might have their own favorites in
mind when leading the discussion so that the class can better understand the main
ideas of the critics. In addition, readers of CliffsNotes and other shortcuts to reading
the play itself might be reminded that many ways of analyzing the meaning of a text
exist and that looking for the “one right answer” is counterproductive.
ARGUMENTS ABOUT LOVE: ESSAYS (p. 650)
LAURA KIPNIS
Against Love (p. 650)
In “Against Love,” Laura Kipnis cites a range of evidence to support her claim that our
current understanding of love is a social fiction. Monogamous love, she argues, be-
longs to a fairly recent set of cultural expectations that we need not fully buy into. In
light of recent social, economic, and political concerns regarding single parenthood,
domestic partnerships, even polygamy, Kipnis’s argument is a timely contribution to
conversations about what today’s families look like. Using historical references from as
far back as the Greeks, Kipnis maintains that our predecessors had very different un-
derstandings of marriage, romance, and love. Though she mentions some disagree-
Students will also likely pick up on Kipnis’s rich, figurative language, including
her frequent use of metaphors. Metaphors serve a variety of functions for her
argument, including the addition of humor and sarcasm to her often-biting analysis;
but they also provide an underlying framework demonstrating that the issue of love is
rooted in social, economic, and material concerns. “Assembly lines” and “miracle
sponges,” for example, conjure up images of mass production and television marketing
campaigns. Our obsession with domestic love, she suggests, is also rooted in and
sustained by our capitalist economy and our habits of consumption. Kipnis argues that
in early childhood we learn to exchange obedience for love, a transaction that sets the
stage for sacrifices and adjustments in future relationships.
Critical readers might notice that alternatives to Kipnis’s model of monogamous
love seems limited, if indeed marriage is indelibly intertwined with other institutions.
Kipnis’s extended quotes from Chuck and Steve reveal that even the most permissive
of relationships have rules that potentially subjugate one partner to the other. Her
argument implies that we ought to rethink how we define love (and the role of sex),
but it is not clear what such a redefinition entails within our current economic system.
As a social institution wrapped up with other economies of power, modern intimacy’s
reworking might entail a reworking of life as we know it. It is possible that she
MEGHAN O’ROURKE
The Marriage Trap (p. 658)
In her review of Laura Kipnis’s book, Against Love, Meghan O’Rourke notes that
Kipnis has indeed noticed a curious trend: Even as the number of divorces increases,
people keep getting married (and remarried). Praising Kipnis for bringing the issue of
marriage to the table, O’Rourke readily concurs that marital love is something society
should honestly and publicly discuss, though she is much less ready than Kipnis to
dismiss monogamy out of hand. O’Rourke clearly agrees with the claim that
monogamous relationships require a kind of labor, though by calling them
“exhausting” enterprises, she takes a bit of the sting out of Kipnis’s critique. She also
finds some value in the “work” required by relationships, implying that the labor of
love can be mutually beneficial. Though generous with Kipnis’s book, O’Rourke
maintains the underlying claim that Kipnis has too readily dismissed the more
satisfying and enduring aspects of monogamous love. Although her tone is much less
biting, O’Rourke uses a mix of wit and sincerity that effectively blunts the other’s
IMPOSSIBLE LOVE: ACROSS GENRES (p. 662)
SEAMUS HEANEY
Punishment (p. 662)
In Northern Ireland where poet Seamus Heaney grew up, large areas are covered with
peat bogs. Heaney tells of being fascinated even as a child with the amazing variety of
objects that fall or are thrown into the bogs only to be found years later, preserved by
the unique chemical properties of the watery, vegetation-rich soil. He recalls that peo-
ple would store butter under the peat in the days before refrigeration, keeping it fresh
for long periods of time. In his earlier poem “Bogland,” Heaney mentions butter being
discovered after hundreds of years still “salty and white,” and he describes the quality
of the bogland as “itself. . . kind, black butter.” He remembers as a child the recovery
of a prehistoric skeleton of a “Great Irish Elk” from a local bog and the newspaper
pictures of his neighbors posing with the huge antlers.
This land had a habit of remembering, and Heaney himself came to see history as
something that still exists in the present, each object reverberating with it and each
human being echoing a heritage and mythology that does not die. As a Roman Catholic
living in Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney would have been hard put to avoid a sense
of history and politics. Students may be aware of religious and political issues that have
plagued Ireland for centuries. They may have read poetry by William Butler Yeats, like
Heaney a Nobel Prize laureate who wrote about Ireland’s unique culture and history.
them, coating them with tar, and then handcuffing them to railings for public ridicule.
With his knowledge of such politically motivated actions, his contact with history
and mythology, and his personal experience of growing up near the peat bogs of
Ireland, Seamus Heaney’s reading in 1969 of The Bog People by the Danish
archaeologist P. V. Glob led to a powerful convergence of interests that energized
Heaney’s writing. The book contains photographs of preserved bodies from bogs in
various locations in northern Europe. The details that remain of faces, bodies, and
artifacts are stunning. Glob’s book was published by Cornell University Press in 1969.
If the book is available to you, take it to class; nothing can replace seeing the
photographs themselves, and students will understand why Heaney was impressed by
them. Glob sees some of the bog people as human sacrifices, offered to a pre-Christian
earth-mother deity, and Heaney makes that connection in some poems in his
young girl from Windeby, in Domland Fen. She lay naked in her grave in the peat,
her hair shaved off, with nothing but a collar of ox-hide round her neck and with
bandaged eyes” (153). Elsewhere in the book, Glob describes her burial in minute
detail, telling us that she was around fourteen, that her hair was originally light blond
Heaney weaves many of the details from the archaeologist’s written and visual
texts into his poem. The scientist’s account is written for a popular audience rather
than for experts; he even includes in his introduction letters from a group of English
schoolgirls interested in his discoveries and dedicates his book to them and his own
daughter, Elsebeth. It is not surprising, therefore, that we detect empathy in his
descriptions. These are real people for him, and we cannot look at the photographs
without feeling their individuality. Seamus Heaney uses sensory imagery that
empathizes even further, evoking the physical sensations she must have felt, especially
the cold. He shows us her fragility; her rib cage is “frail,” she is “[l]ittle” and
“undernourished,” and she is like a “sapling”—a slender young tree. He shows her as
vulnerable, using the word naked and referring to parts of the body we think of as
tender, her “nipples” and the “nape / of her neck.” She is passive, because we feel and
see what is done to her but not what she does. We feel compassion for her and perhaps
a touch of sexual or aesthetic attraction. The poet does not address her directly until
A key to one possible theme for the poem is Heaney’s use of the word scapegoat in
the seventh stanza and his allusion to “stones of silence” in the eighth stanza. Both are
biblical referents that symbolize the shifting of the sins of a culture to a selected
victim. The scapegoat in ancient Israel was a goat driven into the wilderness,
symbolically carrying the evils of the community, as a way of acting out repentance
and absolution. We have come to use the word to refer to a person or group unfairly
punished for the misdeeds of others, often the person or persons exacting the
punishment. The “stones of silence” may refer to an incident in which Jesus defends a
woman accused of adultery, a crime punishable by stoning. He implies that no one
really has the right to judge and punish the personal behavior of another because no
human being can claim moral perfection. The allusion may also relate to a biblical
The speaker calls himself an “artful voyeur.” A voyeur is usually defined as a
person who obtains sexual gratification from observing the sexual activities or the
bodies of other people. The reader joins the speaker in looking at the naked body of
the victim. (Who wouldn’t find the image of her nipples as “amber beads” irresistible?)
But we go even further to invade the “darkened combs”—the valleys—of her
“exposed” brain and to inspect her skeleton. In a sense, to read is to be a voyeur, and
to write is to be an artful one. The poet uses her for his art, and we find pleasure in the
images he creates. But whereas the speaker may do nothing about the violence that he
witnesses, this cannot be said of the poet, because he does not stand idly by. He takes
the action of writing the poem. By exposing our own voyeurism to us, he may
challenge us to act.
In the speech Seamus Heaney gave when accepting the Nobel Prize for literature
in 1995, he relates the story of a busload of men stopped by a masked band of gunmen
in Northern Ireland. When the men, presumed to be Protestant terrorists, shouted for
the Catholics to step forward, the lone Catholic in the group felt the passenger next to
him squeeze his hand to pull him back with the silent promise that his Protestant
friends would keep his religion a secret. The Catholic decided to stand up for his faith
and stepped forward anyway. He was the only survivor. The terrorists pushed him to
the side and opened fire on the Protestants, and the Catholic lived to tell of this small
gesture of peace. It is this squeeze of the hand that Heaney calls for, the small sign of
friendship and solidarity that refuses to hand over the scapegoat for condemnation.
oppressive enemy. Would we easily forgive someone who willingly formed
relationships with the men who abused our fathers and brothers?
As a writer, Heaney is sometimes criticized for being disloyal to his own Northern
Irish Catholics, failing to take a strong stand against oppression. Others fault him for
raising such political issues in poetry at all. Still, by linking the treason of the Irish
women with the presumably less political adultery of the bog woman and by painting
her with such compassion, Heaney makes the brutality toward these women seem to
be directed primarily toward their sexual transgression. Seen in this way, the revenge
of the “tribe” reminds readers of the Chinese villagers who punish the whole family of
an adulteress in Maxine Hong Kingston’s “No Name Woman” (p. 567) or of the men
of some Muslim cultures who execute daughters and sisters who go against their
sexual mores. Rarely are men punished for having sex that does not involve violence,
but women often are.
Seamus Heaney uses down-to-earth language—no pun intended—to describe the
woman in the bog. Many words are one syllable. He ends the fourth stanza with the
hyphenated “oak-bone, brain-firkin,” reminiscent of the Anglo-Saxon rhythms of
Beowulf or the inventions of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a favorite poet of Heaney’s. A
In the poems in this cluster, the punishments seem far more brutal than the crime
would warrant, and all are even more disturbing because they continue after the
victim’s death. The women of Heaney’s “Punishment” are stripped naked before the
community, subjected to attacks on their beauty, and held up to public humiliation.
The bog woman is drowned and weighted down, perhaps being sacrificed in a
religious rite meant to return the community to proper order.
The speaker of Heaney’s “Punishment” gives us the metaphor “stones of silence”
and the image of himself standing “dumb” as he watches the humiliated women. To
keep silent is sometimes to take an action, he implies. To stand aside may be to assist
in wielding a weapon.
It is difficult to imagine such extreme punishments taking place in the
contemporary United States with the approval of the community. However, students
may suggest examples of subtle ways that we punish individuals, symbolically
overreacting to transgressions or opposition. Do they know people who have been
punished by their families for forming relationships outside of their religion or ethnic
KAREN RUSSELL
Bog Girl (p. 664)
Karen Russell’s “Bog Girl” is a strange and riveting story about young Cillian
Eddowis’s first love, the body of a girl from the Iron Age that had been preserved for
thousands of years in a peat bog. While Cillian’s job cutting turf was initially in service
of saving money for a car, which he hoped would lead to having sex for the first time,
the girl entombed in the bog transfixes him. He falls madly in love, and readers soon
discover that this love is chaste, all sexual desires forgotten. Why the change? Given
what we learn of Cillian’s personality, it’s possible that he was always something of a
romantic, waiting to be swept off his feet. He is described as quite shy, so a girlfriend
who doesn’t necessarily require conversation might have a certain appeal. There is
also a subtle savior complex at work in the text, as Cillian rejects the idea of returning
her to the bog for most of the story and worries about who might have killed her.
The story’s genre is difficult to pin down. What begins as a possible, if unlikely,