How can love sometimes only be lust and obsession?

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English Exam

“How can love sometimes only be lust and obsession?”

 Love is something that is often not correctly defined because often enough it gets mistaken with lust and obsession for example in “Twelfth Night” by Shakespeare and in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. There is a fine line between love and lust. If love is only a will to possess, it is not love.

In the play “Twelfth night” there are many things that suggest that there is not just love but that obsession and lust is the case for many of the relationships. It was mainly the lust that made the characters feel they loved each other and it was mainly the obsession which made them want each other.

Many of the characters seem to view love as a kind of curse, a feeling that attacks its victims suddenly and disruptively. At one point, Orsino describes love as an “appetite” (I.i.1–3) that he wants to satisfy. This is an example for lust because love is not something that gets satisfied but something you have with another person. At another point, he calls his desires “fell and cruel hounds” (I.i.21). Olivia describes love as a “plague” from which she suffers terribly (I.v.265). These metaphors reveal the violence and the obsession that goes around with love. If it was love that the characters were feeling for each other they would not characterize it as something bad or unpleasant. Viola says unhappily that “My state is desperate for my master’s love” (II.ii.35) which means that she is desperate to love someone and when she meets the person she loves her love turns into obsession because she is afraid otherwise it might not work. Also as a result of Viola not responding to her acts of obsession she develops a feel of lust which also does not get satisfied. This desperation has the potential to result in obsession and violence as in Act V, scene i, when Orsino threatens to kill Cesario because he thinks that Cesario has forsaken him to become Olivia’s lover.

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At the end of the play, when everyone found the person they desired, both Malvolio and Antonio are prevented from having the objects of obsession. Malvolio, who was obsessive about Olivia, to the point that he imagined she would love him even though that would never be the case because he is a servant he she his mistress. Malviolio must ultimately face the realization that he is a fool, socially unworthy of his noble mistress. Antonio had more a sexual attraction and was driven by lust to want Sebastian and not love.

In The Great Gatsby, the characters, Jay Gatsby ...

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