Love, its Rationalization and Dependency

1. Love, its Rationalization and Dependency “Morning”

2. Structure of the Story • Lydia after going to the farm (finding ticks) • Flashback  Lydia as a grad. Student; Meredith working on his diss.; married for 5 years. • Their meeting in college and their relationship; • Scott and Lydia, relationship and their going to the farm (134-37); • Climax – the motel episode (140- 42) • Reunion – Meredith’s changes; social pressure; changes in Scott’s family  divorce and Lydia with Scott

3. Starting Questions • Why does Lydia develop love relationship with Scott outside of her wedlock? What does she want? • Does she get it? How do the two men relate to her?

4. Lydia’s Interests and Lack • Phisophy: abstraction; inferior position • Platonism; • Levi Strauss – 144 • Scott: his position, knowledge and sexuality • The farm house  stir up her fear and need of “history”

5. Philosophers’ Famous Lines & Lydia’s Ideas • Spinoza’s Ethics: He who repents is twice unhappy and doubly weak; • Passion is faceless and mere blindness of will. • Lydia’s • Fetishizing history and savage’s forgetfulness (137) • I do what I want to do and therefore what I do is what I want. • Fate –like Spinoza’s close universe • “I did wrong, to marry him.” 148 • Scott – marriage tangled roots underneath 133;

6. Lydia about love • Married at 21; • Brainy, absent-minded, committed to housewifery; • trusting “good intentions, mutual respect and affection and ‘love’” 131

7. Mederith: no romantic 130; organized with clear plans about his future; Concentrated on his work 130 Needs Lydia as a companion; 130; 131; M’s simple logic 141 “Did the right thing” 143 Scott Emotional; love-making as a playful discourse; Lydia feels like a Christmas tree 132 authoritative body 134; His simple logic 139 Meredith vs. Scott

8. Self-Centeredness & Dependency • The wife—not talked about by them unless when Scott is annoyed by her(pp. 133; 139; • Lydia Coming to rescue her men • Meredith 141; • Scott 145 – 46 (while Meredith grows mature); • Domesticated love 147

9. Lydia on love • What does she need? E.g. Lydia about the house 135; • P. 145 -- What has she done, and why? She could not remember.

10. “Morning” in Context • gender: idealization of one's lovers (women), gender difference, stereotype, inequality; • gender: idealization of one's lovers (women), gender difference, stereotype, inequality; • Lydia is no longer repressed sexually, but she still serves as a rescuer.

11. “Morning” in Context 2. views of love shown through -- treatment of endings; love and death; -- views of self -- love as fusion, love against self-preservation, love as self-projection; love as a way to fill up one’s lack; -- marriage (as economic exchange, as continuation of one's fantasies),-- language and emplotment (e.g. of Romantic love, of poetry, of opera)-- etc. etc. 2. views of love shown through -- treatment of endings –L & M: calm, not obsessive, but following a decided route -- views of self –L, M and S: love as a way to fill up one’s lack; -- marriage -- economic exchange for status—first a priest’s son and then a teacher.-- language and emplotment (e.g. philosophy)