For I have been raised and educated
in the society where certain perspective towards certain “types of love,” if
there were such things, is prevalent, I also had a limited view in terms of
understanding love. According to the dominant point of view in the community
that I belong to, only one kind of love has been accepted as “normal”: love
between a male and female who are in similar age and from similar social class.
Other kinds of love, including adultery and “Lolita Complex,” have been interpreted
as sins of humankind. Frankly, I have to admit that I have also been trapped in
that specific, circumscribed line of looking at things. Though I’m still not so
sure how I should perceive “love,” reading Lady
with the Dog by Anton Chekov provided me a chance to at least think about
it in several different ways.
When I read Lady with the Dog for the first time, my thoughts were
automatically swayed to criticize the characters and their “inappropriate” love
out of marriage. This inclination was probably rooted from the perspective that
I already possessed, which must have been strongly influenced by the society. But
while I was trying to reproach the how bad “adultery” was and how lascivious
Dimitri’s desire was, there was something in my heart that made me very
uncomfortable. Whereas my brain was saying I could never condone adultery as
something justifiable, my heart was telling me that I was actually touched by
love between Dimitri and Anna, that it did move my feelings to raise a question.
Is adultery really a sin?
Seventh,
you shall not commit adultery. –The Ten Commandments in Bible. Looking back
on history, people have been undeniably harsh on people who have committed
adultery. The Scarlet Letter by
Nathaniel Hawthorne is a famous piece of literature widely known for its
revelation of the unfair treatment of a woman who betrayed her husband. Hester
Prynne in the novel must wear a scarlet A on her dress as a sign of shame, and
stand on the scaffold for three hours, exposed to public humiliation. Korean
history is no exception for the overly bitter punishment on adultery. Any
female who was accused of cheating on her husband had to be carved with the
letter 淫(meaning lustful)
on her chest and live in prison for the rest of her life.
There
is no doubt why people defined adultery as something not only undesirable but
also unacceptable in the society. Sharing love with people other than your
original partner makes him or her feel bad, lose faith and eventually break the
family unit. (plus women had to be more sincere than men at the time) I don’t
believe there is anyone who would feel contented while his or her partner loves
another person. The one who commits adultery is irresponsible in terms of
keeping his family and the previous love, etc. But, just because the decision
made by that person is immoral, does that make the act of love itself tamed?
Love is often said to be the most sacred feeling that mankind can ever
experience. I don’t think anyone has right to degrade the pure love whatsoever
the situation is.
Another point in Lady with the Dog that drew my attention
was that Dimitri, with gray hair, was portrayed to be way older than Anna. Age
difference is one of the factors that public eyes do not take nicely. In many
people’s points of view, especially in those of Koreans, love between an old
man and a young girl is possibly the most “dirty” kind of love that can ever be
found. Even couples with 15 years of age difference are considered as
libidinous beings that are blind to lust. Somehow people don’t want to accept
the love between older and younger people to be innocent and pure. The word "Lolita" has been understood to mean more of a child pornography or novels, rather than the feeling of love itself. This is why “Lolita”
is one of the forbidden words for teenagers in Korean search engines. It is sad
how people interpret love only in terms of desire for sexual relationship.
Apart from the “The Lolita (which I
have not yet watched),” a Korean movie called “The Muse” was also controversial
whether it should be understood as an “appropriate” form of love. This “x-rated”
movie depicted an old poet’s attraction towards a young high school girl.
Although the original purpose of the movie was to portray the poet’s desire for
the “youngness” that the girl possessed, something he had lost several years
ago, critics were busy to castigate how dirty that feeling could be in real
life. Without a single sex scene, this movie was rated mature for its “dangerous”
idea, how the old man dares to love the girl. (It was not a sexual desire that
he had towards the girl, but a combination of mixed feelings.)
The
consequences that it might cause are to be judged apart from the feeling of
love. Though many of those who cheat on their partners were capricious with
their feelings, this does not mean everyone committing adultery is insincere in
love. Though there had been several rape cases in which old men forcefully had
a sexual intercourse with young girls, this should not generalize all love
between people with big age difference as to contain extreme lust. (People
should just stop watching child pornography which would automatically lead them
to imagine that kind of relationship in every single situation.) Whether the
feeling includes any bit of insincerity and sexual desire or not, love itself
should be respected and considered as it is. There is no such thing as pure
love and dirty love; it is not simple like that.
Even after expanding my thoughts
and linking the novella with other examples, I am still not assured enough to
decide how I would look at different kinds of love present in the society. But
there is one thing I can state for sure: the moment of feeling “love” is always
pure and sacred in whatsoever different situations. Reading Lady with the Dog gave me an opportunity
to cast a doubt on the dominant perspective and actually try to think of other
ways. I would probably need more personal experience to set my own point of
view towards love. J