Tragic Lovers

“Death of Tristan and Islot.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume A: The Middle Ages. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006. Print. photo link 

The tragic poem of “Tristan and Isolt” narrated by Stephen Greenbelt tells a tragic love story between the lord or Cornwalls wife and his nephew. Though the reason they fell in love was not by becoming aquatinted but by drinking a love potion. With many attempt to see each other and stay together, it always ended up the Tristan and Isolt must be part due to Marks suspicion. After Tristan leaves Cornwall their love is still so powerful that they arrange to see each other even if it means sailing across the sea to see each other. One day though Tristan got very ill and need Isolt to come to his aid, as Isolt sails across the sea she is flying her whit flag to indicate she will come. However when Tristan asked his wife what color the sail was she lied and said black, meaning Isolt would not come. After Tristan receives this tragic news he dies from from sadness that he would not see his true love. When Isolt arrives to see Tristan dead her heart/soul become poisoned to see him dead, so she kisses him then dies next to him. Their love is said to be eternal because after they where burried, yew tress sprouted from their graves  and intertwined together. Tristan and Isolt had crazy and clever ways they managed to see each other which really showed the extremes they did for love. This was true love because, I feel that if your body is willing to stop functioning for someone else it means true love despite the love potion they drank. This is why “The deaths of Tristan and Isolt” define the tragic love story.

Nabokov, Vladimir, and Alfred Appel. The Annotated Lolita. London [u.a.: Penguin Books, 2000. Print.

The novel “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov puts a twist to your average tragic love story. Humbert, who writes about his journey about a young girl he fell in love with when he was a child. However when Humberts child hood lover dies in her teens he mourns until he finds another lover just like her even of that means years later. While in his thirties he finally finds a young girl named Dolores around the age of twelve who perfectly reminds him of his child hood lover. After Humbert kills Charlotte, Dolores mother, the only person between him and Dolores they travel across America in love. All is good until Humbert gets caught and sent to prison; while Humbert is in prison he dies from heart failure soon after finding out Dolores had passed away. Humberts pedophiliac desire and persistence pays of to an extent to show that there is no correlation between love and age. Even though this is not your typical love story, seeing how Humbert died of heart failure makes the reader look at this story in a different perspective. Rather than you thinking Humbert just wanted Dolores for a sexual need, you see the real reason which was that his body became weak and he died because he was actually in love and did care about her.

Lana Del Rey “Without You” Interscope records, 2012

Lana’s song “Without You” expresses the immense amount of love and emotion she has towards her lover. “They think I have it all. I have nothing without you, all my dreams all the lights mean nothing without you”. This vers really shows how dependent her love is on him, because she’s practically saying the if he leaves her future is black and nothing without him. Lana also sings a vers that says “your love is deadly”, which immediately reminds me of Tristan and islot, because it portrays the fact that if her lover dies her life would be pointless and would lead her to commit sucide. This song epitomizes the tragic love stories by telling us how if you are not together with your true love you might as well die.

photo link West Side Story. Arthur Laurents. Metro-Collin-Mayer studios. 1961

The movie West Side Story is a romantic musical that turns tragic because of love. Two major gangs in New York , The jets and sharks, have a rivalry that has them fighting for territory and power day to day. When news of an upcoming dance arrives to the town everyone wants go, including Tony and Maria who met their and fall in love. However Tony is from the jets and Maria’s older brother Bernardo is from the sharks, though this does not stop them from being in love. When your in love you will do anything for the other person, which is seen by Tony as he tries to stop the gangs from fighting due to Maria’s request. After Tony fails to stop the fight he is distraught to come home and finds some false news that his love Maria was dead. As a hopeful romantic Tony goes to see if this news is true, but when he does find her alive they rejoice for a couple of seconds before Tony gets shot in the back. This tragic ending did result a little happier than most though because she did not commit succeed however everyone seeing how distraught Maria was lead the gangs to put their violence to an end.

Photo link

This picture can be depicted in many different ways on how they died, but there is no denying that they looked like they died together because of love.  When I see this image I imagine a scenario that something tragic or scary was happening, but since instead of running away from whatever it was they looked at each other and said if we die, we die together. If you look closely at the arms of the skeletons you can see them intertwined which shows that they did not just die lying down but by holding each other in an intimate way. However my favorite aspect of this image is that I can see a heart formed between their bodies and it opposes the saying “till death do us part” because in a way it did but it did not.

The article “The surprising reasons we like sad movies” explains the need and benefits of watching tragic love movies. Katie Koerner goes on to elaborate on how her “Research suggests that watching tragic movies might actually make us feel happier across the board.” The two reasons that sad movies make us happy are: they help us appreciate on our lives, and the release of oxytocin makes us happier because we empathize more. This article shows the benefits of watching tragic movies and helps viewers understand that there is not all negativity to a tragic ending, but more of a true meaning.