Romeo and Juliet Must Die

Have you ever wondered why all the romantic stories end when one part gets the other? Romeo and Juliet meet each other, marry and then promptly die. Elizabeth Bennet pairs up with Mr. Darcy and the story is at an end. The fairy tale princess marries the fairy tale prince effectively terminating the fairy tale with a flimsy assurance that their marriage is to be a long and happy one.

A familiar fate

Any author or literature specialist will tell you that with the establishment of the protagonists as a romantic unit the initial conflict is resolved. This is the conflict that drives the plot and creates a lack both protagonists more or less actively seek to fill, and their union rounds off the plot by halting its driving force. More on this below, but in the meantime, there is another theory of why the fate of all couples is this way.

The O(o)ther

Jacques Lacan, the French psychoanalyst, launched his theory of "the other". This was an ontological aspect of the self, an idealised exterior part of what each individual considers to be his essence. While the Lithuanian-French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas focused perhaps more on the social and ethical nature of the other, Lacan’s focus on language makes his thinking especially relevant for the literary Other.

Jacques Lacan

He distinguishes between the little other (the “other”) and the big other (the “Other”). The first is not really someone else, but a projection of the self onto someone or something else, so when Catherine in Wuthering Heights says about Heathcliffe that “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”, she is talking of the little other. On the other side, there is the big other, which is radically different, a clear and distinct alternative to the self. In literature, there is arguably a graded scale of otherness, but where for instance Heathcliffe and Catherine are similar in nature, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy are quite dissimilar. For Elizabeth, then, Darcy is the Other whom she needs to relate to.

This is where Lacan argues that language, the system by which we understand everything and conceptualise the world, originates in the Other, rather than the self. It is by relating to the clearly different Other that language originates, and so language development is beyond the individual’s control, or as Lacan puts it: “the unconscious is the discourse of the Other”.

Bringing it back to the concept of love in literature, since the system of language is created by the Other, the concepts understood through this system follow a similar progress, including love. It is by relating to the Other, Romeo to Juliet, Elizabeth to Darcy, Catherine to Heathcliffe or vice versa that the characters can understand love and each other.

Three couples from literature: Romeo and Juliet,
  Elizabeth and Darcy and Catherine and Heathcliffe

If by now you are a bit confused by the haphazard use of the Other and the other, that is understandable, but let me tidy the conceptual area up for you. Previously, I boldly stated that in literature, there is a graded scale between the Other and the other. Romeo is the other to Juliet in the sense that they are both young aristocrats grappling with many of the same problems and desires. Juliet understands her own feelings and fears by recognising them in Romeo. At the same time, Romeo is Other. He belongs to a different familial tradition with different, conflicting interests to that of Juliet’s family. In order for their relationship to work, Romeo needs to advance from Juliet’s Other to Juliet’s other, and to do so, Juliet needs to conceptualise and understand her love for Romeo.

The same progress will, of course, have to be performed by Romeo with Juliet and the area in which this happens is in that literary graded zone between the Other and the other. Once the process is completed successfully, and both parts are the other to each other, they have formed a new unit in the other, as complete projections of their selves. It is when this stage is reached in literature that the narrative will have to end, because no more of the progress of the main characters is possible. Further narrative requires another Other, with implications for the story which are interesting, but far too wide to address here.

Furthermore, as the psychological progress from the Other to the other mirrors the narrative’s progress from exposition to conclusion, the elements of the Other that needs to be overcome in the process reflects the conflict in the narrative.

You see, here we have returned to the conflict as promised.

Conflict

Already the ancient Greeks were familiar with what they called agon, an identifiable element that initiates and propels the plot forward. Later literary studies have identified explored and expanded on this concept of conflict by diversifying into a range of categories like “man vs. man”, “man vs. society”, “man vs. nature” and “man vs. self”. In this way, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes grapples with Moriarty, Orwell’s Winston Smith opposes Big Brother, London’s Buck and White Fang have to come to terms with nature, external and internal and Beckett’s Krapp, Wilde’s Dorian Gray and Palahnuik’s Fight Club protagonist all spend the span of the plot consciously or unconsciously dealing with some aspect of their own character.

Two antagonistic sources of conflict; Professor Moriarty
and Big Brother/The society in Nineteen Eighty-four

Depending on how you define the different sides of the conflict, several of these categories can play a role. The hindrance for Romeo or Juliet and the progress from Other to other is both actual antagonists (relatives), society (one organised around the family unit and its values), nature (in the sense of their own sexuality) and self (their perception of their own individuality and identity).

While this bears witness to the fluid nature of conflict in literature, it nevertheless underlines how essential it is. Even when conflict remains unresolved at the end, when the complexity of the conflict is a central theme or when the narrative challenges the reader to make his own conclusions, the conflict is present from the exposition on. Just look at any part of Joyce’s Dubliners, which is riddled with different conflicts but painfully void of resolution.

Happily Ever After

This, however is not the case in most of the romantic stories of literature. Once the lovers are together (or irretrievably lost to each other, which is the same), the conflict is resolved, the Other has become the other and the plot is at an end. There are only two alternatives to this. The first one involves an open ending. Romeo enters the church and sees Juliet and the plot ends there.

The second is that most dreaded of cultural items; the sequel. In this, “Romeo and Juliet 2 – Vampires of Verona” or “Pride and Prejudice – Meet the Darcys”, a new conflict and possibly a new or different set of characters (“Romeo and Juliet 2 – Mercutio the Merciless”) need to be introduced.

In any case, the main characters of the original have overcome the conflict and effectively ended the plot. Romeo and Juliet are one in death and so are Heathcliffe and Catherine. The Darcys, and hopefully many others of your favourite literary characters, do like in the fairy tales and live happily ever after.

of the conflict and the fun

What do you think?

Is this theory correct? Are all love stories doomed to end as soon as love blossoms, and how does this make you feel about your own relationships? I have used the theories of psychoanalysis on literature, can these theories on literature be used on real life social relationships?

Comments on The Tale of Sir Bob are always welcome! 

Sources: as given

A Literary Love Song

Here is Justin Edvards from The Consultants' literary love song with my best transcription of the lyrics underneath. If you should happen to know the author in the third verse, please tell me e.g. in a comment.

Too Jane Austentatious

One wet Wednesday afternoon

I saw my lending library lovely.
Raven haired she stamped my Raymond Chandler,
my heart dissolved

So I stayed ‘till closing time,
I reckoned that to make her mine
I’d have to woo her bookishly;
I Danielle Steeled my resolve.

Oh, library lady, would you care to join me for a cup of T.
S. Eliot or perhaps a glass of Barbara Pyms and lemonade?
Harper Lee she gazed at me then locked the door
I took her Wilkie Collins in my hand and we began to promenade.

This was certainly a Mills & Boon,
had I been too Thomas Fool-Hardy?
But she shared my feeling
I was pretty damn Bernard Shaw.

So I told her how I felt,
she dimmed the lights I dropped my Orwells,
she grasped my dictionaries,
we fell J.K. Rowling to the floor

But the library hall is no place to seduce
it’s too Jane Austentatious.
It would be Rudyard Kipling there
we might get seen, Tom Clancy that

So we crept into the reference
section out of view
and there I lay down with my library lady
on the coconut mat

Oh, she said, this itchy floor
is bound to give me a thesaurus.
I built a bed of Mary Wesleys
upon which we could uncoil

With the photo copier light on,
for a pillow, Michael Crichton,
tenderly she placed her hands
upon my Conan Doyle.

She was Oscar Wilde in bed,
like a leaping Salman Rushdie head-
long into passion, personally I was
a bit too Jonathan Swift.

I could have done with a hardback edition
rather than my floppy old paperback Grisham,
but I gave her the full Brontë
And she didn’t seem too miffed.

But our affair had never lasted.
Something went Kingsley Amis.
She found another lover
with a larger print than mine

I was Graham Greene with envy
I was Somerset Maugham and I felt empty,
but my Philip Roth soon passed,
one day I ceased this futile cry.

Now I stand here feeling sorry,
grasping my Daphne du Mauri-
er a Dewey Decimal teardrop
on my cheek once more.

Occasionally I reminisce
and an Evelyn Waugh escapes my lips
remembering by Dickens
our lending library floor.

50 Books Every Child Should Read

According to The Independent, Education Secretary Michael Gove has presented a goal that every 11-year-old should read at least 50 books per year. In the spirit of this optimistic suggestion, they had three children's books writers and two critics compile one list each of ten of the books they thought should figure on this list. Read through it and see how many you know!

Philip Pullman

* Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Indispensable. The great classic beginning of English children's literature.
* Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. What effortless invention looks like.
* Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner. A great political story: democracy in action.
* Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. As clear and pure as Mozart.
* Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken. If Ransome was Mozart, Aiken was Rossini. Unforced effervescence.
* The Owl Service by Alan Garner. Showed how children's literature could sound dark and troubling chords.
* The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Superb wit and vigorous invention.
* Moominsummer Madness by Tove Jansson. Any of the Moomin books would supply the same strange light Nordic magic.
* A Hundred Million Francs by Paul Berna. A particular favourite of mine, as much for Richard Kennedy's delicate illustrations (in the English edition) as for the story.
* The Castafiore Emerald by Hergé. Three generations of this family have loved Tintin. Perfect timing, perfect narrative tact and command, blissfully funny.

Michael Morpurgo

* The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson. The heroine is blessed with such wonderful friends who help her through the twists and turns of this incredible journey.
* A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The first few pages were so engaging, Marley's ghostly face on the knocker of Scrooge's door still gives me the shivers.
* Just William books by Richmal Crompton. These are a must for every child.
* The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde. This was the first story, I think, that ever made me cry and it still has the power to make me cry.
* The Elephant's Child From The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. The story my mother used to read me most often, because I asked for it again and again. I loved the sheer fun of it, the music and the rhythm of the words. It was subversive too. Still my favourite story.
* Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson This was the first real book I read for myself. I lived this book as I read it.
* The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. A classic tale of man versus nature. I wish I'd written this.
* The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono. A book for children from 8 to 80. I love the humanity of this story and how one man's efforts can change the future for so many.
* The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy The story of two children who go to find their father who has been listed missing in the trenches of the First World War.
* The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson-Burnett. I love this story of a girl's life being changed by nature.

Michael Morpurgo, John Walsh and Michael Rosen

Katy Guest, literary editor for The Independent on Sunday

* Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah. Story of a young Ethiopian boy, whose parents abandon him in London to save his life.
* Finn Family Moomintroll (and the other Moomin books) by Tove Jansson. A fantasy series for small children that introduces bigger ones to ideas of adventure, dealing with fear, understanding character and tolerating difference.
* Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. It's rude, it's funny and it will chime with every 11-year-old who's ever started a new school.
* I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Written for a teenage audience but fun at any age.
* The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein. Be warned, these tales of hobbits, elves and Middle Earth are dangerously addictive.
* The Tygrine Cat (and The Tygrine Cat on the Run) by Inbali Iserles. If your parents keep going on at you to read Tarka the Otter, The Sheep-Pig and other animal fantasies, do – they're great books – also try Iserles' stories about a cat seeking his destiny.
* Carry On, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. A grown-up book – but not that grown-up.
* When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr. Judith Kerr's semi-autobiographical story of a family fleeing the Nazis in 1933.
* Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett. Elaborate mythological imagery and a background based in real science. If you like this, the Discworld series offers plenty more.
* The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson. The pinnacle of the wonderful Jacqueline Wilson's brilliant and enormous output.

John Walsh, author and Independent columnist

* The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Irresistible puzzle-solving tales of the chilly Victorian master-sleuth and his dim medical sidekick.
* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Age-transcending tale, both funny and sad.
* Mistress Masham's Repose by TH White. Magical story of 10-year-old Maria, living in a derelict stately home, shy, lonely and under threat from both her governess and her rascally guardian.
* Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Inexplicably evergreen, trend and taste-defying 1868 classic.
* How to be Topp by Geoffrey Willams and Ronald Searle. Side-splitting satire on skool, oiks, teechers, fules, bulies, swots.
* Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz. First of the action-packed adventures with 14-year-old Alex Rider.
* Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. "Dulce et Decorum Est" for pre-teens.
* Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. Lively, amoral, wildly imaginative debut (six more followed) about the money-grabbing master-criminal Artemis, 12. The author called it "Die Hard with fairies".
* The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier. Inspiring wartime story of the Balicki family in Warsaw.
* Animal Farm by George Orwell. Smart 11-year-olds won't need any pre-knowledge of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and 1917 to appreciate this brilliantly-told fable.

Some of the books

Michael Rosen

* Skellig by David Almond. Brings magical realism to working-class North-east England.
* Red Cherry Red by Jackie Kay. A book of poems that reaches deep into our hidden thoughts but also talks in a joyous voice exploring the everyday.
* Talkin Turkeys by Benjamin Zephaniah. A book of poems that demands to be read aloud, performed and thought about.
* Greek myths by Geraldine McCaughrean. Superheroes battle with demons, gods intervene in our pleasures and fears – a bit like the spectres in our minds going through daily life, really – beautifully retold here.
* People Might Hear You by Robin Klein. A profound, suspenseful story about sects, freedom and the rights of all young people – especially girls.
* Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. A book that dared to go where no one thought you could with young audiences because it raises tough stuff to do with race.
* Einstein's Underpants and How They Saved the World by Anthony McGowan. A crazy adventure set amongst the kids you don't want to know but who this book makes you really, really care about.
* After the First Death by Robert Cormier. Cormier is never afraid of handling how the personal meets the political all within the framework of a thriller.
* The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd. A book that allows difference to be part of the plot and not a point in itself.
* Beano Annual. A cornucopia of nutty, bad, silly ideas, tricks, situations and plots.

I got 22.
 
Source: The Independent Web Pages