Sunday, September 19, 2010

My online Artifact

This essay will talk about how a successful literature love story is wrote. As my online Artifact, I am using the 'Best Love Stories in Literature: Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, and Romeo and Juliet. Wrote on May 28, 2009 by Jeris Swanhorst ( http://www.suite101.com/content/lasting-love-stories-in-literature-a120919 ) . My online Artifact explains what are some 'needs' that almost every successful love story has.

I choose this Artifact because it includes the book 'Wuthering Heights' and because it shows the details about the components that are needed. I also chose this book because the article looks very well written and after you read it you can tell that it had some thought behind it instead of just something put together. The author is also very well educated also and not just someone that is there who has no degree and just wanted to put it on there just to do it.

Jeris Swanhorst went to Minnesota State University, Mankato and earned her Bachelors's degree in English and Literature, then went on to collect her Masters degree in the same field. She has also studied Film, World Literature and British Literature. Since 2006, Swanhorst has taught college English and Literature for MSU, Mankato and for Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts.(http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/jswan)

When Swanhorst wrote this article, I think that she was trying to get out that every great love story in Literature have something in common, which are forbidden/brief love, a love triangle, and young love. I believe that she is trying to persuade the audience that if these ingredients are put right into the bowl then you get a perfect love story and in her article she gives three examples: Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering heights, and The Great Gatsby and what I will be doing is talking about how Jeris wrote this article and giving my part in it but, first of all I think I should give some background into each story that will be talked about.

The first story is 'Romeo and Juliet'. 'Romeo and Juliet' is about two teenagers who fall in love yet shouldn't be together because both of their families are at war Romeo and Juliet ends up getting married and Juliette and her maid concocts a plan that Romeo and Juliette will be able to live together. Juliet will drink a potion that will make her seem deceased and be buried in a family crypt yet, when it all comes romeo only hears that Juliette is dead and goes to her crypt and drinks poison and dies by her side. Then Juliette wakes up and sees him dead and kiss him and once realizing that the poison won't kill her she kills herself with a dagger and dies by his side.

The second story 'Wuthering Heights' is about two young lovers, Healthcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. When Catherine decides to marry Mr. Edgar Linton because of financial reasons, Healthcliff plans to destroy the Earnshaw and the Linton family empire.

The last story mentioned in this article is 'The Great Gatsby.' In the 'The Great Gatsby' Jay Gatsby is in love with daisy who married Tom when Jay Gatsby was in the Great War. Jay and Daisy gets reunited and see each other frequently yet Nick also is starting to like Daisy. Daisy ends up having an car accident in Gatsby car and Gatsby gets killed because people thought that he was driving when the accident happened.

Every love story should have a young love. Jeris explained how each book had a young love story like in Romeo and Juliet, they were teenagers, in Wuthering Heights, they liked each other when they were kids, and The Great Gatsby, they were young. I believe that she put this as one of the three ingredients is because it is more romantic to be young and in love than old and in love. I myself do feel the same way. To me, it gives the usual scenario of young love yet with a twist. For example, Romeo and Juliet love each other and they end up both dead for love. Another example is that in 'Wuthering Heights' Healthcliff acts like he can't live with Catherine yet can't live without her .

Every love story should also include a love triangle. When comes a love triangle, drama seems to fall right behind it. Reason being is that usually when a love triangle happens there is fame and fortune involved. For example, in The Great Gypsy, Tom, Daisy and Gatsby are in the love triangle. Daisy marries Tom for the same reason Cathy marries Healthcliff in 'Wuthering Heights' and that Juliet is already promised to Paris yet, she loves Romeo in 'Romeo and Juliet'. As I said there usually comes drama and indeed it did which included lots of arguments, sword battles and so on and so forth. This talk was actually my favorite part in this article. I say this because it talks about love yet in a strange way because usually one person has to choose and each person has pro and con factors like statuses, money, true love, handsomeness, etc.

The last ingredient to a love story should include a restricted or brief romance. This section of the article was my least favorite because it shows that during a certain time, you couldn't hang out with a certain group of people even when you had nothing to do with the argument. For example, in 'Romeo and Juliet', their families were enemies and were not able to publicly see each other even when they had nothing to do with it. Also in 'Wuthering Heights', Healthcliff and Catherine had a restricted love because the Earnshaw family kept threatening to put him out of the house plus she wanted to marry Mr. Edgar because he had more money than Healthcliff did even though she knew that she loved Healthcliff.

At the end of this article, Jeris goes on to explain about how young romances are changing. Her example was of twilight which I thought was a very great connection. She was trying to get out that romances are not cut short but are lasting. For example in the series Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, Edward and Bella live happily ever after instead of something happening. Yet twilight does have some components shown in this essay. For example, Edward and Bella are both young and there is a love triangle going on throughout the series between the human, Bella, the wolf, Jacob, and the vampire, Edward, yet no brief or restricted love is present in this text.

Overall, I really liked this article. It connected very well with the story 'Wuthering Heights'. There is also a comment part on the article where you can leave your own comments so the reader can add there own 'two cents' into whether they liked it or what they agree or disagree with.  

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