Title: The Choice between Loving and Being Loved
English 201 Section:
Topic: Love and Relationships
Title: The Choice between Loving and Being Loved
Thesis Statement: It is better to be loved than to love.
- Introductory Paragraph
Love is a selfless act that many are unable to commit to, unless they hold the deepest affections for the other individual. For this reason, love can be considered a burden and a liability, especially when the person who is loved fails to reciprocate the same kind of commitment. Elements of love can be seen in many aspects of life, and various authors have tackled the issue at length in their literature. The relationship between any two people will vary, but the overall goal for all parties involved is to seek a connection that will meet a desire in their lives. Despite this common goal, many people find that the potential to be hurt exists whenever they seek love.
- Body Paragraph One: Topic Sentence: Loving other people can lead to lack of self-consideration.
Supporting Detail: Loving another person may cause an individual to consider the well- being and happiness of others over that of his or her own. While this can be sometimes considered a selfless act, it may lead to people failing to safeguard their personal interests.
- Body Paragraph Two: Topic Sentence: Loving another person can be a burden in itself.
Supporting detail: The act of love can be a burden because it involves taking care of the physical, mental, and emotional needs of others. It also means that one has to be willing to expend much of their time, money, energy, and other resources to make sure their love interest is happy and content. In part B of Atwood’s Happy Ending, we see that Mary is making a lot of effort to ensure that John is happy because she is in love with him (279). She tries to look good for him, makes him dinner, and sleeps with him all in a bid to make him happy.
- Body Paragraph Three: Topic Sentence: The act of loving those who do not reciprocate can be heartbreaking.
Supporting Detail: Heartbreak can stem from a rejection caused by loving someone who does not share the same feelings. This is evident in Atwood’s Happy Ending, where Mary kills herself because she realizes that John, the man she loves, is actually in love with another woman (279).
- Body Paragraph Four Topic Sentence: Being loved by an individual may lead to feelings of guilt if the feelings are not reciprocated.
Supporting Detail: The feeling of being genuinely loved is often accompanied by acts of selflessness, kindness, and support from another individual. However, in many cases, the loved individual may often feel guilty of receiving this kindness if the feeling of romantic love is not reciprocated.
- Body Paragraph Five: Topic Sentence: Losing a loved one to death can be difficult to deal with.
Supporting Detail: Grievous despondency and heartbreak is often experienced by the bereaved when their loved ones pass on. In Chopin’s The Story of an Hour, Josephine was afraid that her sister, Mrs. Mallard was too emotionally fragile to handle news of the loss of her husband because of the belief that she loved him (8). For this reason, she ensured she broke the news in the most delicate manner possible.
- Body Paragraph Six: Topic Sentence: The individual who is loved holds the power.
Supporting Detail: When two people do not love one another equally, a power imbalance will be created. This means that one party will make more effort to sustain the relationship than the other will. In Atwood’s Happy Ending, part B shows an imbalance of power between John and Mary. Because Mary loves John more than he loves her, she makes most of the effort to ensure he is happy while John merely “uses her body for selfish pleasure” (279).
- Body Paragraph Seven: Topic Sentence: The individual who loves may build expectations that may often not be met.
Supporting detail: Individuals who fall in love are often hopeful that their feelings will be requited. However, this may not always be the case. This is evident when Mary expects that because she is dedicated to pleasing John, he will marry her some day. However, this does not happen, and her heartbreak leads her to commit suicide.
- Body Paragraph Eight: Topic Sentence: Loving the wrong person can transform an individual in a negative way.
Supporting Detail: It is possible to fall in love with individuals who do not possess the capacity to share the same feelings. These individuals may be selfish, uncaring, and disregarding of the emotional well-being of those who love them. When expectations of mutual love are expected from such individuals, disappointment will likely follow.
- Body Paragraph Nine: Topic Sentence: Being loved can build character and a healthy sense of self-image and perception.
Supporting detail: Love translates to kindness, care, and support of others. These are some key foundations of building a healthy sense of self-esteem and well-being. Recipients of such kind of love therefore stand to gain far more than the ones who give.
- Body Paragraph Ten: Topic Sentence: Love can sometimes be difficult to express to the other individual.
Supporting detail: In some cases, people may fail to know how to express love in a way that their romantic partner will acknowledge and appreciate. This could be because they have no knowledge of how to express, or simply possess a different or unconventional ‘language’ of love. In such a case, loving someone can be challenging.
- Conclusion (Restate Thesis – not exactly the same): Loving others brings about challenges that are difficult to tackle, especially in situations where the love interest does not share the same feelings.
The burden of loving others may
lead to an individual giving away too much of him or herself while not
receiving much in return. Therefore, it is better to be loved than to love.
Atwood, Margaret. “Happy Endings.” Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, edited by Janet Burroway and Susan Weinberg, Longman, 2003, pp. 279-281.
Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. Joe Books Ltd. 2018.
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