Parry***
Posted by Cassia on November 05, 1997 at 18:31:42:
In response to Circling thoughts, written by Hil on November 04, 1997 at 21:33:15
]
]
If you see Roland as the knight on a quest, don't you have to see promise in their relationship in attaining that purity? Or do you interpret the quest as something else, like knowledge, and the relationship is something helpful on the way?
Purity is the thing that Roland is looking for but I'm not sure he knows it. I think he see it more in terms of escaping foulness and it not the same thing. At the beginning of the story he doesn't feel he has the right to ask for what he wants being a lowly semi-employed post grad. The journey he makes is to know his heart in terms of wishing to attain purity, knowing what will be his work and relising that he has not failed. All has been preparation and none of it wasted.
Is passion a delusion/dream of the relatively innocent or unrealistic? This gets us back to the idea of death of romance.... Passion isn't really dead, is it?
That is the 20C Hamlet question. Dare we with our knowledgeble heart and self centered ways dare to possess passion? Or allow it to possess us? I do not believe passion is dead, but it has gown to be a frightful place. Many people say it what they want but when they are confronted by passion tehy shy away as if it was a kind of slow painful poison. They want to crate it up and park it firmly under a sign called 'sex' and make the two, one. Doesn't work. Passion isn't so easily pigeonholed. Nor is passion love, or work or anything we dare compare it with. It is its own thing and it is overwhelming.
Which is mostly the reason it is so terrifying. The great fear anymore seems to be the fear of losing control. We don't want to know that life can push us around and make us dance to a tune we haven't called. We have grown so determinst that the notion an emotion or illnes or even death is not at our beck and call nearly paralyzes the Western psyche. What is the use of something that once set in motion you cannot control? What is the use of something you cannot buy and sell or make turn a profit? Passion cannot be labeled good or bad. Passion can build and destroy in the same instant. Passion simply is. Like a lurker outside the house it waits but if truly not wanted it will not enter but it doesn't guarantee not to touch before leaving. The touch can tear the soul to shreds. The only guarantee passion makes is that you will feel.
Posting followups to old messages is disabled; instead go to the main index and post a new message which mentions this one.
