Jesse Stuart's "Love"

Book Review # 101241

English > Analysis
Literature > American

This paper is a review of Jesse Stuart's short story, "Love", about how pragmatic love is expressed.

920 words () | 0 sources | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that in Jesse Stuart's short story, "Love" the conflict between the father and the son, which is expressed through their differing perspectives on the world, relates to the overall theme of pragmatic love. The author points out that Jesse Stuart's story describes an encounter in which a man has his dog kill a snake. The paper states that, beneath the surface, the story is a deeper one of unreasoning destruction brought about by an allegedly higher creature and the compassion shown by an animal often associated with evil. The author concludes that, by the end of the story, father appears to have learned something about love and about making unreasoning judgments.

Table of Contents:
Nature's Adversary
Nature's Advocate
Relationships
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"The following day, the father and the son find the bull black snake coiled near his dead mate. The snake has found her in the stillness of the night, which is not unlike the stillness of death. "Still devoted to his mate, the bull snake "lifted his head and followed [them] as [they] walked around the dead snake." The snake has shown more compassion to his mate than the father has shown to the female snake; unlike the human, who allegedly has the benefit of human reason and emotion, the snake does not instinctively and indiscriminately attack."