What is the difference between love and hate? Is there a difference? Or is hatred just a different form of love? Often times in movies and books we read of the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” yet a lot of times we grow attached to the bad guys. For example, in the movie “Heavyweights,” Ben Stiller plays one of these attractive “bad guy” roles. He turns the summer camp into a living hell, yet for some reason, he is a very liked character and has played many similar roles since. Sometimes the “bad guys” are accidentally bad, or ignorantly bad, or even just bad to carry out there jobs; yet still we have some kind of connection to them. Why is that? Sometimes the person we hate the most is hated by us only because we love that person so much.
In the poem “Daddy,” written by Sylvia Plath in 1966, there is a certain feeling of hatred and a feeling of love that the reader obtains. One cannot say but by speculation and close analysis whether or not she was expressing love or hatred. There are lines in the poem that express both ideas: 1) idea of love- “I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du.” 2) idea of hatred- “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.” It seems hypocritical to tell a person you love them and later speak of your hatred towards them. Why does she have words of love and hate? Could hatred just be another form of love?
In a review of this poem by Judith Kroll called Rituals of Exorcism: “Daddy,” Judith says, “The love is not merely conveyed by the rhythm and sound of the poem, it is a necessary part of the poem’s meaning, a part of the logic of its act.” Judith Kroll makes it clear in this review that there is an obvious longing for her father. The poem seems hateful and inhumane, but Judith proposes the opposite. One quote to show her longing for her father says, “The vampire who said he was you and drank my blood for a year.” Sylvia Plath found a man who acted like her father and was somewhat of an impersonator. The phrase is loving, yet she uses harsh and negative words to describe her father’s impersonator.
At the same time, Sylvia uses hateful and negative phrases with nice and kind words to describe her father. The first example says, “I have always been scared of you…and your neat moustache.” She had been afraid of him, even with his becoming image. The second example reads, “I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look.” She made a model of her father who was in the image of one the most disliked human beings known to man. So her love and her longing for her father is paired somehow with her hatred and ever lasting scorn towards him.
In conclusion, Judith Kroll brings out an interesting point: that the things we hate are the things we love. Judith quotes another poem by Sylvia called “Tulips.” Judith quotes this poem saying, “The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me…Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.” So not only do we love the things we hate and hate the things we love, but somehow these two correspond with each other. Despite her pain caused by the tulips, nothing can stop her from the connecting the wounds with the tulips. So back to my original question: could hatred just be another form of love? Sylvia Plath has proven that this can actually occur. Our hate and pain corresponds with our love.
4 comments:
Graham Greene wrote a great novella called "The End of the Affair" in which one of the themes is the relationship between love and hate. I think you'd find it interesting.
Wow awesome!!! I'll look it up. You are Scott who?
sperling
haha awesome! i couldn't figure that out :) thanks for the referral
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