Falling in Love
Society uses the metaphor of "falling in love" to describe love literally. Love isn't something that can be put into words, so a metaphor is necessary in order to talk about it. The metaphor highlights the fact that a person has no control over who they fall in love with and when they fall in love. Falling means that you cannot stop, so we think of love as something we can't stop doing - something that is endless. The end of a fall is painful, so we think of the end of love as being something that will end painfully.
However, the metaphor hides the fact that you do have a choice as to who you fall in love with. You may pick a partner based on religion, race, social class, or ethnicity. You're not going to marry some homeless guy off the streets, and if you're a rich socialite you won't marry a poor person. Many people also have problems with interracial marraiges. Still others want a partner of their same religion. So, you really do have a great deal of choice and you're not simply "falling" for any random person.
The metaphor has many effects on how we act and think about love. For example, let's take the movie, The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. A rich socialite falls for a poor country boy. The two have an amazing summer together, but her parents disapprove of their relationship. She moves back to the city with her family and meets a rich young lawyer. She gets engaged to him, but something pulls her back to the poor country boy and she meets back up with him shortly before her wedding. She ends up cancelling her wedding and staying with the boy that she fell in love with as a teenager. Classic chick flick. Basically, society's saying that you can't control who you fall in love with. In the movie, the girl's parents want her to marry a boy based on his social class but she has to follow her heart. She fell for the poor boy and she can't control her feelings. She can't stop loving him. This is how we tend to think about love, but we have to remember the hidden part of the metaphor - that we actually do have control over the choices that we make about love interests.
However, the metaphor hides the fact that you do have a choice as to who you fall in love with. You may pick a partner based on religion, race, social class, or ethnicity. You're not going to marry some homeless guy off the streets, and if you're a rich socialite you won't marry a poor person. Many people also have problems with interracial marraiges. Still others want a partner of their same religion. So, you really do have a great deal of choice and you're not simply "falling" for any random person.
The metaphor has many effects on how we act and think about love. For example, let's take the movie, The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. A rich socialite falls for a poor country boy. The two have an amazing summer together, but her parents disapprove of their relationship. She moves back to the city with her family and meets a rich young lawyer. She gets engaged to him, but something pulls her back to the poor country boy and she meets back up with him shortly before her wedding. She ends up cancelling her wedding and staying with the boy that she fell in love with as a teenager. Classic chick flick. Basically, society's saying that you can't control who you fall in love with. In the movie, the girl's parents want her to marry a boy based on his social class but she has to follow her heart. She fell for the poor boy and she can't control her feelings. She can't stop loving him. This is how we tend to think about love, but we have to remember the hidden part of the metaphor - that we actually do have control over the choices that we make about love interests.
posted by Jenna @ 11:08 PM
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