Woes Of Unconditional Love

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The Woes of Unconditional Love Is love still real when a person dies? When does love end? In both William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” and Type O Negative's “Love You To Death” we find the themes of love and death intertwined. Love, although known as positive emotion, finds itself presented in these works as a powerful twisting force of darkness. “A Rose For Emily” is about a woman who killed her love rather than let him move on, and “Love You To Death” presents much the same: “Oh, let me love you to... let me love you to death” (Type O Negative). Through death, these lovers seek out a creepy permanence for their love, a love that stays timeless and resolute. Love is seen by many as a necessity of a happy life. It's an important theme in cultures, expressed differently by all, but the feeling itself seems universal. “A Rose for Emily” opens describing an old spinster bullying the tax collectors and officials of her town. The first glimpse of love found in the story is nothing but a brief mention of a sweetheart in section 2: “That was two years after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart –? the one we believed would marry her –? deserted her.” (Faulkner 239) Emily had a sweetheart that was serious, but did not end up as the town had assumed, in marriage. It was a love that itself seemed to have died. And later in section 2 we are told more about Emily's and her relationship with her father: The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house ... Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual with no trace of grief on her face. She told them her father was not dead. (Faulkner 239) Not only did she tell them he wasn't dead, she wouldn't give up the body for three days. William Faulkner makes sure we're aware of how Emily uses denial to deal with love and death regarding her father. Emily's love for her father
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