Thesis:
The aspects of love and its consequences are discussed in Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It and Sarah McCullers’s Ballet of the Sad Café,
Paragraph 3: Sad Café
Through love, Amelia finds redemption. As she experience love, she changes completely. Her love becomes unconditional and self-sacrificing. She demonstrates this as she gives everything, such as her kidney stones, chew box, and her father’s bed, to Cousin Lymon. She tends to the poor and treats the sick. Loving Cousin Lymon, she gives him everything he needs to grow. She crucified her old way of life for Cousin Lymon. However, Amelia soon begins to feel the bitterness described from Annhilation. She is frustrated that Cousin Lymon does not return her love. McCullers state that in these situations, “the loves strips the beloved bear” (??). To feel loved, Amelia tries to gain all of Cousin Lymon’s attention. She tires him out by always being with him. The beloved is always uncomfortable as he cannot reciprocate her love. McCullers also acknowledges that love has disredemptive qualities. This is a fact that most people do not know about. Conrad Aiken states that people only know about the physical pleasures and bitterness that arise from love. However, they do not know that love can give and destroy life. By the end of the novel, Cousin Lymon betrays Amelia’s love. He runs away with Marvin Macey, his love. This betrayal destroys Amelia’s life and purpose. As she loses a special thing in her life, her life falls apart. She stops tending the sick and she does not treat her customers fairly. She returns to her old way of life. In one’s life, love can be found. Then it can be gone the next day. Aiken states that “All that we know in love is bitter.” Through her loss, Amelia suffers the ultimate consequence: bitterness. She wants revenge. She regrets everything she has done for him.
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