History forgets all of the couples who get their happy ending. We are obsessed with Romeos and Juliets, Pyramuses and Thisbes, Tristans and Isoldes. We become paralyzed by Samsons and Delilahs, enthralled with Anthonies and Cleopatras.
It is the hardship of love that draws humans in. It is a hardship that makes us believe that something deep runs in the connection between two people - so deep, that a world and all of its obstacles, cannot trump it.
Is this because stories were made by an oppressed lower class seeking to believe that their emotions were stronger than castles and swords? Is this because the stories helped overcome depression and see meaning in the world? Is it an obsession with love conquering all?
No. Again and again, the love in these stories fails. Love ends in disaster, and still we follow the story of all of our poor heroes - their love itself being both boon and hubris.
There is an occasional Wesley and Buttercup - an occasional Cinderella and Prince Charming - but in general, happy endings are reserved for harlequin romances and G rated movies. Those tales that reach a happy endings always do so by a hairs breadth, and somehow never gain the quality of legend that the failures have received.
Orpheuses and Euridices, Lancelots and Guinevere - in all the famous love stories, for all their nuances, the end plot remains predictable. Everyone loses. Mostly, everyone dies. What is it that makes us connect love and tragedy? Or is it not our nature, but the nature of love itself? Whatever the case, when it comes right down to it, we seem to prefer a Heros and Leanders to Jarods and Maryanns.
Who were Jarod and Maryann, you ask?
. . . exactly!
But maybe this Jarod and Maryann existed some time, once upon a time. Maybe they were a simple couple who lived in a cottage in the middle of rural France, tending a farm, raising a family. Devoted to each other and their little paradise, that they cared about so much. The sort that can really exist. Those are the sorts who get a real "happily ever after," but despite all the purity and beauty of that, we don't seem to think them worthy of one ounce of a storyteller's ink.
It is the hardship of love that draws humans in. It is a hardship that makes us believe that something deep runs in the connection between two people - so deep, that a world and all of its obstacles, cannot trump it.
Is this because stories were made by an oppressed lower class seeking to believe that their emotions were stronger than castles and swords? Is this because the stories helped overcome depression and see meaning in the world? Is it an obsession with love conquering all?
No. Again and again, the love in these stories fails. Love ends in disaster, and still we follow the story of all of our poor heroes - their love itself being both boon and hubris.
There is an occasional Wesley and Buttercup - an occasional Cinderella and Prince Charming - but in general, happy endings are reserved for harlequin romances and G rated movies. Those tales that reach a happy endings always do so by a hairs breadth, and somehow never gain the quality of legend that the failures have received.
Orpheuses and Euridices, Lancelots and Guinevere - in all the famous love stories, for all their nuances, the end plot remains predictable. Everyone loses. Mostly, everyone dies. What is it that makes us connect love and tragedy? Or is it not our nature, but the nature of love itself? Whatever the case, when it comes right down to it, we seem to prefer a Heros and Leanders to Jarods and Maryanns.
Who were Jarod and Maryann, you ask?
. . . exactly!
But maybe this Jarod and Maryann existed some time, once upon a time. Maybe they were a simple couple who lived in a cottage in the middle of rural France, tending a farm, raising a family. Devoted to each other and their little paradise, that they cared about so much. The sort that can really exist. Those are the sorts who get a real "happily ever after," but despite all the purity and beauty of that, we don't seem to think them worthy of one ounce of a storyteller's ink.
