[World Lit.] 2nd Reading Journal: The lens: how we look at and define love.

            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