Guilt, Duty, And Unrequited Love
: Deconstructing the Love Triangles in James Joyce’s The Dead and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure
"It’s no problem of mine but it’s a problem I fight, living a life that I can’t leave behind. But there’s no sense in telling me, the wisdom of the cruel words that you speak. But that’s the way that it goes and nobody knows, while everyday my confusion grows."
--New Order, Bizarre Love Triangle, from Substance, 1987
Most people who have watched a soap opera can recognize that the love triangle is a crucial element to the plot. In fact, the original radio broadcasted soap operas seemed to consist almost entirely of love triangles. The love triangle, for plot purposes, seems to ...
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as the love triangle keep the story moving. Common elements of triangles in today’s soaps consist of lust, greed, jealousy, any of which are interchangeable with the conflicts resulting from situations involving lovers coming back from the dead or paternity uncertainties. Yet love triangles, whether in the soap opera or in the novel, are not all uniformly constructed. James Joyce’s The Dead and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, both modernist novels, each contain love triangles as an integral element of the story.
The key triangles I will focus on are comprised of Michael, Greta and Gabriel, and, Philotson, Sue, and Jude. Although not absolutely identical, deconstruction reveals guilt, duty, and unrequited love as essential components to the construction of both.
Besides the most obvious similarity that both triangles are composed of one woman and two men, guilt also figures prominently. Although the men of the triangles may have their own guilt-related issues, it ...
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2035). Although it is a bit peculiar for one of the members of this bizarre love triangle to reside beyond the grave, we see here that Michael plays a significant role, perhaps altering Gabriel and Greta’s relationship forever, with Greta’s guilt as the instigating factor.
As for Sue, in Jude, her guilt operates on a completely different level, a religious one. Like Greta, Sue also had a sick man die after braving the elements just to see her. Yet, unlike The Dead, this event has no great impact on the love triangle between Jude, Sue and Philotson. This three-cornered romantic disaster, because of Sue’s return to Philotson, had already reached it’s climax. If ...
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"Guilt, Duty, And Unrequited Love." Essayworld.com. June 27, 2007. Accessed April 25, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Guilt-Duty-And-Unrequited-Love/67131.
"Guilt, Duty, And Unrequited Love." Essayworld.com. June 27, 2007. Accessed April 25, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Guilt-Duty-And-Unrequited-Love/67131.
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