Stories about love
There is a line in Chekhov’s play The Seagull that I often think of. Pretentious playwright Treplev and his girlfriend Nina are about to stage a play he has written. They are performing in the backyard of his home for a group of family and friends. Treplev and Nina are both nervous, because in the audience will be Treplev’s mother, a famous actress, and her latest romantic conquest, Trigorin, who is a famous writer. At the mention of Trigorin’s name, Treplev immediately becomes insecure and defensive. Nina begins to criticize the play she is about to perform, saying that it’s difficult to act in. “Nothing happens in your play,” she says. “It’s just a lot of words. And I think a play should always have a love story.”
It’s a funny line, because she seems naive—and she is naive, a country girl with aspirations to become an actress—but if you look at the play The Seagull, it does in fact have a love story. It is chock full of love stories, in fact. There are at least two love triangles and at least three secret affairs. But if you went to see the play and afterward someone asked you, “Was it a love story?” Well, you might not know how to answer.
I believe that all stories are love stories. Love is what makes us move, and people in stories must move. A static character is not alive. People can get stuck, but perhaps that’s when they move most of all. We make such dramatic movements when we become stuck! Love makes us move because love connects us with something outside ourselves. Love is connected to desire and longing. Love makes us vulnerable to being wounded. We seek out love, but we also protect ourselves against it.
Think of a story that definitely, absolutely is not a love story. For example, the movie Parasite. It’s about a poor family who cons a rich family into hiring them to do various service roles in the household—and in the process uncover a nasty secret. The parasitism in the title refers not only to the relationship of the con-artists to the conned, but the relationship of the wealthy family to society. The movie is about asymmetrical power relationships and poverty and society and violence, both implicit and explicit.
And yet, the movie is about love. Everyone in the movie is concerned about someone they love. Children are worried about their parents. Parents are concerned about their children. Wives want to protect their husbands. They are, in fact, willing to go to extraordinary lengths for those they love. There is a long scene midway through the movie, where the con-artist family has completely taken over the rich family’s home while they are on vacation. They sit in the living room and eat food together, enjoying the spoils of their scheming. They eat and enjoy each other’s company. Their love for one another is tangible—and as the scene goes on we become more and more uncomfortable. We know something is coming. We don’t know what, but we know it’s going to be bad.
This is what it is to love someone. Loving someone means being vulnerable. It means that you will take great risks to provide for them, to be with them, to love them the way you believe you should. That’s why every story is a love story. Because love is what makes us move.
