Eros The Bittersweet

While reading Anne Carson’s, Eros The Bittersweet, I felt a personal connection to the concept of bittersweet love. Bittersweet is defined by an instant of desire that stimulates feelings of unattainable love. As humans we generally want what we cannot have because we have put an emphasized meaning to the object of our desire. During class we discussed the similarity of desire to hunger and suggested that they are similar because when we are hungry we satisfy that hunger with food, and as a result we become satisfied. This is similar to desire because when we want a personal or physical relationship with someone we will try and pursue that individual, but once we attain that person our desire has lost a sense of appeal. Why do we want what we cannot have or already possess? Personally, I feel that it is human nature to create expectations and beliefs about a desired person or object, so that once we possess that object a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment is achieved. Desire has the ability to create ideas in our mind that contradict or destroy our ideas of love. A person will become jealous from ideas of fear, and will then resent their desired lover. The concept of bittersweet is described through jealousy because it is bitter to resent a lover, but it is also sweet to have a sense of love for desired partner. Carson describes jealousy as, “a dance in which everyone moves, for it is the instability of the emotional situation that preys upon a jealous lover’s mind” (Carson, 14). Jealousy is an uncontrollable feeling that illuminates a person’s feelings of desire. Bittersweet has multiple meaning and definitions, but the main point of the concept is the desire to want what we cannot have, and acts such as desire and jealousy mold our behavior and interactions with loved ones.