The Reflection of The Four Loves/ 林欣瑜

The Reflection of The Four Loves

進階英文作文 2Ac 林欣瑜

What is love? I think love has many different kinds of types and forms. There are love between family, siblings, friends, and lovers. I think everyone has different definition about love. In my opinion, love can make people happy and also can make people painful. Love is like the sun. It is warm and bright. Love is like the thunder. It makes people feel scared and suffocating. Love is inevitable and we all need love in our life.

    In the introduction of this book, I know the meaning of Gift-love and Need-love that the author mentioned in the introduction. Gift-love is a kind of love that given by a person without any payment. Need-love is the other kind of love that given by a person when other people need love. The author said “We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves”(12). I like these sentences in the introduction. Through these sentences, I know the importance of love. These sentences let me remind of my high school life. I left home and studied when I was a high school student. I needed to adapt myself to the new condition. Maybe I was young at that time, sometimes I felt helpless. Sometimes I cried when I felt lonely. Sometimes I missed my family. Luckily, I met good friends and teachers. These people let me have a commitment to spirit and emotion. Thanks for the love and care from my friends and teachers, I had a wonderful high school life.

    I like some sentences in chapter two. The author said “Pleasures of Appreciation are very different. They make us feel that something has not merely gratified our senses in fact but claimed our appreciation by right. The connoisseur does not merely enjoy his claret as he might enjoy warming his feet when they were cold. He feels that here is a wine that deserves his full attention; that justifies all the tradition and skill that have gone to its making and all the years of training that have make his own palate fit to judge it”(29). The examples and metaphors in this short paragraph simply explicate the pleasures of appreciation. I like these examples. These examples and metaphors let me know that pleasures of appreciation are kinds of love that express people love the essence of things. They cherish them just like the man feels that “a wine that deserves his full attention, justifies all the tradition and skill that have gone to its making and all years of training that have made his own palate fit to judge it”(29).

    In chapter three is about affection. I am interested about some quotes that Lewis wrote in this chapter. He said “Sometimes a curious double jealousy is felt, or rather two inconsistent jealousies which chase each other round in the sufferer’s mind”(72). Afterwards, he mentioned “Parents in this state are much more comfortably placed than brothers and sisters. Their past is unknown to their children. Whenever the deserter’s new world is, they can always claim that they have been through it themselves and come out the other end”(73). I have heard my parents say something like that. When they were young, they liked to play and go everywhere they wanted. Because they were young and curious about everything. Now, I am young. I have done something that my parents did then. They understand why I like to hang out with friends and go everywhere I want because they have been through it themselves.

  Chapter four is about friendship, the author said “Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden)”(96). I have his kind of experience. I am working in a library now. At first, I didn’t know anything about my colleagues. But after chatting with each other, I found that someone’s personalities and interests are similar to me. I like to chat with her and tell some secrets inside my heart. Getting along with her is a happy thing in my life. She always gives me advice and helps when I meet difficulties. It’s so lucky to have such a warm companionship and friendship.

    Chapter five is talking about Eros. I like the analogy in this sentence. “In Eros at times we seem to be flying; Venus gives us the sudden twitch that reminds us we are really captive balloons”(142). Then, the author said “When lovers say of some act that we might blame, “Love made us do it,” notice the tone. A man saying, “I did it because I was frightened,” or “I did it because I was angry,” speaks quite differently. He is putting forward an excuse for what he feels to require excusing. But the lovers are seldom doing quite that. Notice how tremulously, almost how devoutly, they say the word love, not so much pleading an “extenuating circumstance” as appealing to an authority. The confession can be almost a boast. There can be a shade of defiance in it. They “feel like martyrs.” In extreme cases what their words really express is a demure yet unshakable allegiance to the god of love”(156). I think lovers are like warriors or martyrs when they fall in love. They think they have right to say something because they fall in love. Love gives a strong power to lovers. I can feel and notice that lovers tend to do so. Some mistakes or improper deeds will be rationalized because of love.

    Lewis also mentioned “And all the time the grim joke is that this Eros whose voice seems to speak from the eternal realm is not himself necessarily even permanent. He is notoriously the most mortal of our loves. The world rings with complaints of his fickleness with his protestations of permanency. To be in love is both to intend and to promise lifelong fidelity. Love makes vows unasked; can’t be deterred from making them. “I will be ever true,” are almost the first words he utters”(157 and 158). Through his words, I can truly understand what the author wants to convey. I have experiences from myself. Love is like a miracle and magical thing. It contains the elements of happiness and attractiveness. It makes lovers want to close to each other every day and don’t want to leave. For me, love makes me want to stay with my lover every day. Staying with him makes me happy, even just looking at him but doing nothing. I can feel the happiness. Furthermore, lovers like to say “I will love and stay with you forever.” They like to make promises like this. Love lets lovers make promise to strengthen their love. My lover also likes to say this to me. I think it is because when lovers fall in love, they tend to make promise to let his or her lover have a sense a security and a feeling of being loved by lover. Love has a sort of romantic atmosphere let lovers can’t resist to make this kind of promise.

In conclusion, after reading the chapter of introduction to Eros, I have some thoughts and ideas about love. Although the author used some professional words or sentences to describe or explicate the theory and the phenomenon of love that made me difficult to understand, I still learn many things from this book. Through this book, I explored and analyzed many different kinds of aspects of love. Moreover, I come up some thoughts in my mind. I think love has no race, gender and poor and lowly. Everyone has these four kinds of loves that mentioned in this book. Also, everybody has rights to love someone. Nowadays, more and more homosexuality and bisexuality are showing up in society. I think they are normal person. But, some people may think they are abnormal eccentric and despise them. I consider that their thoughts are not mature. Everyone has choices and rights to love someone. However, they are hard to accept by people in today’s society. In this book, I not only learn the four loves but also understand that I should cherish love sincerely. Love is beautiful. Love should be treated equally.