I didn't know what hate felt like, not the hate that comes after love. It's huge and desperate and it longs to be proved wrong. And every day it's proved right it grows a little more monstrous. If the love was passion, the hate will be obsession. A need to see the once-loved weak and cowed beneath pity. Disgust is close and dignity is far away. The hate is not only for the once loved, it's for yourself too; how could you ever have loved this?
Interpretation
The quote explores the deep and destructive nature of hate that follows love, highlighting how it can consume both the lover and the beloved.
In this quote, Jeanette Winterson reflects on the complexity of emotions that arise after love turns into hate. She suggests that this kind of hate is a desperate and obsessive feeling, which grows as one grapples with the pain of loss and betrayal. The transition from love to hate can be devastating, not only towards the other person but also towards oneself, questioning past feelings and choices. Winterson captures the essence of how love can transform into a monstrous form of hatred that craves to see the beloved in a weak and pitiful state, showcasing the darker sides of human emotions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the complexities of relationships during a psychology class.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone... but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.
You know, the man of my dreams might walk round the corner tomorrow. I'm older and wiser and I think I'd make a great girlfriend. I live in the realm of romantic possibility.
You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.
Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting If I could hear his heart softly pounding Yes, and only if he was lying by me Would I lie in my bed once again.
You don't have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive.
I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.
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