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Book Guides

Love, desire, and sex are a major motivators for nearly every character in The Great Gatsby . However, none of Gatsby's five major relationships is depicted as healthy or stable.

So what can we make of this? Is Fitzgerald arguing that love itself is unstable, or is it just that experiencing love and desire the way the characters do is problematic?

Gatsby's portrayal of love and desire is complex. So we will explore and analyze each of Gatsby's five major relationships: Daisy/Tom, George/Myrtle, Gatsby/Daisy, Tom/Myrtle, and Jordan/Nick. We will also note how each relationship develops through the story, the power dynamics involved, and what each particular relationship seems to say about Fitzgerald's depiction of love.

We will also include analysis of important quotes for each of the five major couples. Finally, we will go over some common essay questions about love, desire, and relationships to help you with class assignments.

Keep reading for the ultimate guide to love in the time of Gatsby!

• George/Myrtle
• Daisy/Gatsby
• Nick/Jordan
• Common Essay Prompts/Discussion Topics

Quick Note on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.

Analyzing The Great Gatsby Relationships

We will discuss the romantic pairings in the novel first through the lens of marriage. Then we will turn our attention to relationships that occur outside of marriage.

Marriage 1: Daisy and Tom Buchanan

Tom and Daisy Buchanan were married in 1919, three years before the start of the novel. They both come from incredibly wealthy families, and live on fashionable East Egg, marking them as members of the "old money" class.

Daisy and Tom Marriage Description

As Jordan relates in a flashback, Daisy almost changed her mind about marrying Tom after receiving a letter from Gatsby (an earlier relationship of hers, discussed below), but eventually went through with the ceremony "without so much as a shiver" (4.142).

Daisy appeared quite in love when they first got married, but the realities of the marriage, including Tom's multiple affairs, have worn on her. Tom even cheated on her soon after their honeymoon, according to Jordan: "It was touching to see them together—it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the papers too because her arm was broken—she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel" (1.143).

So what makes the Buchanans tick? Why has their marriage survived multiple affairs and even a hit-and-run? Find out through our analysis of key quotes from the novel.

Daisy and Tom Marriage Quotes

Why they came east I don't know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. (1.17)

Nick introduces Tom and Daisy as restless, rich, and as a singular unit: they. Despite all of the revelations about the affairs and other unhappiness in their marriage, and the events of the novel, it's important to note our first and last descriptions of Tom and Daisy describe them as a close, if bored, couple . In fact, Nick only doubles down on this observation later in Chapter 1.

Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

"You see I think everything's terrible anyhow," she went on in a convinced way. "Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything." Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated—God, I'm sophisticated!"

"The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged." (1.118-120)

In this passage, Daisy pulls Nick aside in Chapter 1 and claims, despite her outward happiness and luxurious lifestyle, she's quite depressed by her current situation. At first, it seems Daisy is revealing the cracks in her marriage —Tom was "God knows where" at the birth of their daughter, Pammy—as well as a general malaise about society in general ("everything's terrible anyhow").

However, right after this confession, Nick doubts her sincerity. And indeed, she follows up her apparently serious complaint with "an absolute smirk." What's going on here?

Well, Nick goes on to observe that the smirk "asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged." In other words, despite Daisy's performance, she seems content to remain with Tom, part of the "secret society" of the ultra-rich.

So the question is: can anyone—or anything—lift Daisy out of her complacency?

"I never loved him," she said, with perceptible reluctance.

"Not at Kapiolani?" demanded Tom suddenly.

From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air.

"Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?" There was a husky tenderness in his tone. ". . . Daisy?" (7.258-62)

Over the course of the novel, both Tom and Daisy enter or continue affairs, pulling away from each other instead of confronting the problems in their marriage.

However, Gatsby forces them to confront their feelings in the Plaza Hotel when he demands Daisy say she never loved Tom. Although she gets the words out, she immediately rescinds them—"I did love [Tom] once but I loved you too!"—after Tom questions her.

Here, Tom—usually presented as a swaggering, brutish, and unkind—breaks down, speaking with "husky tenderness" and recalling some of the few happy moments in his and Daisy's marriage. This is a key moment because it shows despite the dysfunction of their marriage, Tom and Daisy seem to both seek solace in happy early memories. Between those few happy memories and the fact that they both come from the same social class, their marriage ends up weathering multiple affairs.

Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement.

They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together. (7.409-10)

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . . (9.146)

By the end of the novel, after Daisy's murder of Myrtle as well as Gatsby's death, she and Tom are firmly back together, "conspiring" and "careless" once again, despite the deaths of their lovers.

As Nick notes, they "weren't happy…and yet they weren't unhappy either." Their marriage is important to both of them, since it reassures their status as old money aristocracy and brings stability to their lives. So the novel ends with them once again described as a unit, a "they," perhaps even more strongly bonded since they've survived not only another round of affairs but murder, as well.

Daisy and Tom Marriage Analysis

Neither Myrtle's infatuation with Tom or Gatsby's deep longing for Daisy can drive a wedge between the couple. Despite the lying, cheating, and murdering that occurs during the summer, Tom and Daisy end the novel just like they began it: careless, restless, and yet, firmly united.

The stubborn closeness of Tom and Daisy's marriage, despite Daisy's exaggerated unhappiness and Tom's philandering, reinforces the dominance of the old money class over the world of Gatsby. Despite so many troubles, for Tom and Daisy, their marriage guarantees their continued membership in the exclusive world of the old money rich. In other words, class is a much stronger bond than love in the novel.

Marriage 2: Myrtle and George Wilson

In contrast to Tom and Daisy, Myrtle and George were married 12 years before the start of the novel. You might think that since they've been married for four times as long, their marriage is more stable. In fact, in contrast from Tom and Daisy's unified front, Myrtle and George's marriage appears fractured from the beginning .

Myrtle and George Marriage Description

Although Myrtle was taken with George at first, she overestimated his money and "breeding" and found herself married to a mechanic and living over a garage in Queens, a situation she's apparently unhappy with (2.112).

However, divorce was uncommon in the 1920s, and furthermore, the working-class Myrtle doesn't have access to wealthy family members or any other real options, so she stays married—perhaps because George is quite devoted and even in some ways subservient to her.

A few months before the beginning of the novel in 1922, she begins an affair with Tom Buchanan, her first affair (2.117). She sees the affair as a way out of her marriage, but Tom sees her as just another disposable mistress, leaving her desperate and vulnerable once George finds out about the affair.

Myrtle and George Marriage Quotes

I heard footsteps on a stairs and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:

"Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down."

"Oh, sure," agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity—except his wife, who moved close to Tom. (2.15-17)

As we discuss in our article on the symbolic valley of ashes , George is coated by the dust of despair and thus seems mired in the hopelessness and depression of that bleak place, while Myrtle is alluring and full of vitality. Her first action is to order her husband to get chairs, and the second is to move away from him, closer to Tom.

In contrast to Tom and Daisy, who are initially presented as a unit, our first introduction to George and Myrtle shows them fractured, with vastly different personalities and motivations. We get the sense right away that their marriage is in trouble, and conflict between the two is imminent.

"I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said finally. "I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe."

"You were crazy about him for a while," said Catherine.

"Crazy about him!" cried Myrtle incredulously. "Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there." (2.112-4)

Here we get a bit of back-story about George and Myrtle's marriage: like Daisy, Myrtle was crazy about her husband at first but the marriage has since soured. But while Daisy doesn't have any real desire to leave Tom, here we see Myrtle eager to leave, and very dismissive of her husband. Myrtle seems to suggest that even having her husband wait on her is unacceptable—it's clear she thinks she is finally headed for bigger and better things.

Generally he was one of these worn-out men: when he wasn't working he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless way. He was his wife's man and not his own. (7.312)

Again, in contrast to the strangely unshakeable partnership of Tom and Daisy, the co-conspirators, Michaelis (briefly taking over narrator duties) observes that George "was his wife's man," "worn out." Obviously, this situation gets turned on its head when George locks Myrtle up when he discovers the affair, but Michaelis's observation speaks to instability in the Wilson's marriage, in which each fights for control over the other . Rather than face the world as a unified front, the Wilsons each struggle for dominance within the marriage.

"Beat me!" he heard her cry. "Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!"

A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting; before he could move from his door the business was over. (7.314-5)

We don't know what happened in the fight before this crucial moment, but we do know George locked Myrtle in a room once he figured out she was having an affair. So despite the outward appearance of being ruled by his wife, he does, in fact, have the ability to physically control her. However, he apparently doesn't hit her, the way Tom does, and Myrtle taunts him for it—perhaps insinuating he's less a man than Tom.

This outbreak of both physical violence (George locking up Myrtle) and emotional abuse (probably on both sides) fulfills the earlier sense of the marriage being headed for conflict. Still, it's disturbing to witness the last few minutes of this fractured, unstable partnership.

Myrtle and George Marriage Analysis

While Tom and Daisy's marriage ends up being oddly stable thanks to their money, despite multiple affairs, Myrtle and George's marriage goes from strained to violent after just one.

In other words, Tom and Daisy can patch things up over and over by retreating into their status and money, while Myrtle and George don't have that luxury . While George wants to retreat out west, he doesn't have the money, leaving him and Myrtle in Queens and vulnerable to the dangerous antics of the other characters. The instability of their marriage thus seems to come from the instability of their financial situation, as well as the fact that Myrtle is more ambitious than George.

Fitzgerald seems to be arguing that anyone who is not wealthy is much more vulnerable to tragedy and strife. As a song sung in Chapter 5 goes, "The rich get richer and the poor get—children"—the rich get richer and the poor can't escape their poverty, or tragedy (5.150). The contrasting marriages of the Buchanans and the Wilsons help illustrate the novel's critique of the wealthy, old-money class.

Relationship 1: Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby

The relationship at the very heart of The Great Gatsby is, of course, Gatsby and Daisy , or more specifically, Gatsby's tragic love of (or obsession with) Daisy, a love that drives the novel's plot. So how did this ill-fated love story begin?

Daisy and Gatsby Relationship Description

Five years before the start of the novel, Jay Gatsby (who had learned from Dan Cody how to act like one of the wealthy) was stationed in Louisville before going to fight in WWI. In Louisville, he met Daisy Fay, a beautiful young heiress (10 years his junior), who took him for someone of her social class. Gatsby maintained the lie, which allowed their relationship to progress.

Gatsby fell in love with Daisy and the wealth she represents, and she with him (though apparently not to the same excessive extent ), but he had to leave for the war and by the time he returned to the US in 1919, Daisy has married Tom Buchanan.

Determined to get her back, Gatsby falls in with Meyer Wolfshiem, a gangster, and gets into bootlegging and other criminal enterprises to make enough money to finally be able to provide for her. By the beginning of the novel, he is ready to try and win her back over, ignoring the fact she has been married to Tom for three years and has a child. So does this genius plan turn out the way Gatsby hopes? Can he repeat the past? Not exactly.

Daisy and Gatsby Relationship Quotes

"You must know Gatsby."

"Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?" (1.60-1)

In the first chapter, we get a few mentions and glimpses of Gatsby, but one of the most interesting is Daisy immediately perking up at his name. She obviously still remembers him and perhaps even thinks about him, but her surprise suggests that she thinks he's long gone, buried deep in her past.

This is in sharp contrast to the image we get of Gatsby himself at the end of the Chapter, reaching actively across the bay to Daisy's house (1.152). While Daisy views Gatsby as a memory, Daisy is Gatsby's past, present, and future. It's clear even in Chapter 1 that Gatsby's love for Daisy is much more intense than her love for him.

"Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay."

Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor. (4.151-2)

In Chapter 4, we learn Daisy and Gatsby's story from Jordan: specifically, how they dated in Louisville but it ended when Gatsby went to the front. She also explains how Daisy threatened to call off her marriage to Tom after receiving a letter from Gatsby, but of course ended up marrying him anyway (4.140).

Here we also learn that Gatsby's primary motivation is to get Daisy back, while Daisy is of course in the dark about all of this. This sets the stage for their affair being on unequal footing: while each has love and affection for the other, Gatsby has thought of little else but Daisy for five years while Daisy has created a whole other life for herself .

"We haven't met for many years," said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever be.

"Five years next November." (5.69-70)

Daisy and Gatsby finally reunite in Chapter 5, the book's mid-point. The entire chapter is obviously important for understanding the Daisy/Gatsby relationship, since we actually see them interact for the first time. But this initial dialogue is fascinating, because we see that Daisy's memories of Gatsby are more abstract and clouded, while Gatsby has been so obsessed with her he knows the exact month they parted and has clearly been counting down the days until their reunion.

They were sitting at either end of the couch looking at each other as if some question had been asked or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy's face was smeared with tears and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room. (5.87)

After the initially awkward re-introduction, Nick leaves Daisy and Gatsby alone and comes back to find them talking candidly and emotionally. Gatsby has transformed—he is radiant and glowing. In contrast, we don't see Daisy as radically transformed except for her tears. Although our narrator, Nick, pays much closer attention to Gatsby than Daisy, these different reactions suggest Gatsby is much more intensely invested in the relationship.

"They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. "It makes me sad because I've never seen such—such beautiful shirts before." (5.118).

Gatsby gets the chance to show off his mansion and enormous wealthy to Daisy, and she breaks down after a very conspicuous display of Gatsby's wealth, through his many-colored shirts.

In Daisy's tears, you might sense a bit of guilt—that Gatsby attained so much just for her—or perhaps regret, that she might have been able to be with him had she had the strength to walk away from her marriage with Tom.

Still, unlike Gatsby, whose motivations are laid bare, it's hard to know what Daisy is thinking and how invested she is in their relationship, despite how openly emotional she is during this reunion. Perhaps she's just overcome with emotion due to reliving the emotions of their first encounters.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. (6.134)

In flashback, we hear about Daisy and Gatsby's first kiss, through Gatsby's point of view. We see explicitly in this scene that, for Gatsby, Daisy has come to represent all of his larger hopes and dreams about wealth and a better life—she is literally the incarnation of his dreams . There is no analogous passage on Daisy's behalf, because we actually don't know that much of Daisy's inner life, or certainly not much compared to Gatsby.

So we see, again, the relationship is very uneven—Gatsby has literally poured his heart and soul into it, while Daisy, though she obviously has love and affection for Gatsby, hasn't idolized him in the same way. It becomes clear here that Daisy—who is human and fallible—can never live up to Gatsby's huge projection of her .

"Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now—isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once—but I loved you too."

Gatsby's eyes opened and closed.

"You loved me too?" he repeated. (7.264-66)

Here we finally get a glimpse at Daisy's real feelings— she loved Gatsby, but also Tom, and to her those were equal loves . She hasn't put that initial love with Gatsby on a pedestal the way Gatsby has. Gatsby's obsession with her appears shockingly one-sided at this point, and it's clear to the reader she will not leave Tom for him. You can also see why this confession is such a blow to Gatsby: he's been dreaming about Daisy for years and sees her as his one true love, while she can't even rank her love for Gatsby above her love for Tom.

"Was Daisy driving?"

"Yes," he said after a moment, "but of course I'll say I was." (7.397-8)

Despite Daisy's rejection of Gatsby back at the Plaza Hotel, he refuses to believe that it was real and is sure that he can still get her back. His devotion is so intense he doesn't think twice about covering for her and taking the blame for Myrtle's death. In fact, his obsession is so strong he barely seems to register that there's been a death, or to feel any guilt at all. This moment further underscores how much Daisy means to Gatsby, and how comparatively little he means to her.

She was the first "nice" girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. It amazed him—he had never been in such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there—it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions. (8.10, emphasis added)

In Chapter 8, when we get the rest of Gatsby's backstory, we learn more about what drew him to Daisy—her wealth, and specifically the world that opened up to Gatsby as he got to know her. Interestingly, we also learn that her "value increased" in Gatsby's eyes when it became clear that many other men had also loved her. We see then how Daisy got all tied up in Gatsby's ambitions for a better, wealthier life.

You also know, as a reader, that Daisy obviously is human and fallible and can never realistically live up to Gatsby's inflated images of her and what she represents to him. So in these last pages, before Gatsby's death as we learn the rest of Gatsby's story, we sense that his obsessive longing for Daisy was as much about his longing for another, better life, than it was about a single woman.

Gatsby and Daisy Relationship Analysis

Daisy and Gatsby's relationship is definitely lopsided. There is an uneven degree of love on both sides (Gatsby seems much more obsessively in love with Daisy than Daisy is with him). We also have difficulty deciphering both sides of the relationship, since we know far more about Gatsby, his past, and his internal life than about Daisy.

Because of this, it's hard to criticize Daisy for not choosing Gatsby over Tom—as an actual, flesh-and-blood person, she never could have fulfilled Gatsby's rose-tinted memory of her and all she represents. Furthermore, during her brief introduction into Gatsby's world in Chapter 6, she seemed pretty unhappy. "She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented "place" that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village—appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand" (6.96). So could Daisy have really been happy if she ran off with Gatsby? Unlikely.

Many people tie Gatsby's obsessive pursuit of Daisy to the American Dream itself—the dream is as alluring as Daisy but as ultimately elusive and even deadly.

Their relationship is also a meditation on change —as much as Gatsby wants to repeat the past, he can't. Daisy has moved on and he can never return to that beautiful, perfect moment when he kissed her for the first time and wedded all her hopes and dreams to her.

Relationship 2: Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson

In contrast to Gatsby and Daisy's long history, the novel's other affair began much more recently: Tom and Myrtle start their relationship a few months before the novel opens.

Tom and Myrtle Relationship Description

Myrtle sees the affair as romantic and a ticket out of her marriage, while Tom sees it as just another affair, and Myrtle as one of a string of mistresses.

The pair has undeniable physical chemistry and attraction to each other, perhaps more than any other pairing in the book.

Perhaps due to Myrtle's tragic and unexpected death, Tom does display some emotional attachment to her, which complicates a reading of him as a purely antagonistic figure—or of their relationship as purely physical. So what drives this affair? What does it reveal about Tom and Myrtle? Let's find out.

Tom and Myrtle Relationship Quotes

"I think it's cute," said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. "How much is it?"

"That dog?" He looked at it admiringly. "That dog will cost you ten dollars."

The airedale—undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked delicately.

"That dog? That dog's a boy."

"It's a bitch," said Tom decisively. "Here's your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it." (2.38-43)

This passage is great because it neatly displays Tom and Myrtle's different attitudes toward the affair . Myrtle thinks that Tom is spoiling her specifically, and that he cares about her more than he really does—after all, he stops to buy her a dog just because she says it's cute and insists she wants one on a whim.

But to Tom, the money isn't a big deal. He casually throws away the 10 dollars, aware he's being scammed but not caring, since he has so much money at his disposal. He also insists that he knows more than the dog seller and Myrtle, showing how he looks down at people below his own class—but Myrtle misses this because she's infatuated with both the new puppy and Tom himself.

Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.

"It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I couldn't keep my eyes off him but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm—and so I told him I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn't hardly know I wasn't getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'You can't live forever, you can't live forever.' " (2.119-20)

Myrtle, twelve years into a marriage she's unhappy in, sees her affair with Tom as a romantic escape. She tells the story of how she and Tom met like it's the beginning of a love story. In reality, it's pretty creepy —Tom sees a woman he finds attractive on a train and immediately goes and presses up to her like and convinces her to go sleep with him immediately. Not exactly the stuff of classic romance!

Combined with the fact Myrtle believes Daisy's Catholicism (a lie) is what keeps her and Tom apart, you see that despite Myrtle's pretensions of worldliness, she actually knows very little about Tom or the upper classes, and is a poor judge of character. She is an easy person for Tom to take advantage of.

Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing in impassioned voices whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name.

"Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" shouted Mrs. Wilson. "I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai——"

Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. (2.124-6)

In case the reader was still wondering that perhaps Myrtle's take on the relationship had some basis in truth, this is a cold hard dose of reality. Tom's vicious treatment of Myrtle reminds the reader of his brutality and the fact that, to him, Myrtle is just another affair, and he would never in a million years leave Daisy for her.

Despite the violence of this scene, the affair continues. Myrtle is either so desperate to escape her marriage or so self-deluded about what Tom thinks of her (or both) that she stays with Tom after this ugly scene.

There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control. (7.164)

Chapter 2 gives us lots of insight into Myrtle's character and how she sees her affair with Tom. But other than Tom's physical attraction to Myrtle, we don't get as clear of a view of his motivations until later on. In Chapter 7, Tom panics once he finds out George knows about his wife's affair. We learn here that control is incredibly important to Tom—control of his wife, control of his mistress, and control of society more generally (see his rant in Chapter 1 about the "Rise of the Colored Empires" ).

So just as he passionately rants and raves against the "colored races," he also gets panicked and angry when he sees that he is losing control both over Myrtle and Daisy. This speaks to Tom's entitlement —both as a wealthy person, as a man, and as a white person—and shows how his relationship with Myrtle is just another display of power. It has very little to do with his feelings for Myrtle herself. So as the relationship begins to slip from his fingers, he panics—not because he's scared of losing Myrtle, but because he's scared of losing a possession.

"And if you think I didn't have my share of suffering—look here, when I went to give up that flat and saw that damn box of dog biscuits sitting there on the sideboard I sat down and cried like a baby. By God it was awful——" (9.145)

Despite Tom's abhorrent behavior throughout the novel, at the very end, Nick leaves us with an image of Tom confessing to crying over Myrtle. This complicates the reader's desire to see Tom as a straightforward villain. This confession of emotion certainly doesn't redeem Tom, but it does prevent you from seeing him as a complete monster.

Tom and Myrtle Relationship Analysis

Just as George and Myrtle's marriage serves as a foil to Tom and Daisy's, Tom and Myrtle's affair is a foil for Daisy and Gatsby's . While Daisy and Gatsby have history, Tom and Myrtle got together recently. And while their relationship seems to be driven by physical attraction, Gatsby is attracted to Daisy's wealth and status.

The tragic end to this affair, as well as Daisy and Gatsby's, reinforces the idea that class is an enormous, insurmountable barrier , and that when people try to circumvent the barrier by dating across classes, they end up endangering themselves.

Tom and Myrtle's affair also speaks to the unfair advantages that Tom has as a wealthy, white man. Even though for a moment he felt himself losing control over his life, he quickly got it back and was able to hide in his money while Gatsby, Myrtle, and George all ended up dead thanks to their connection to the Buchanans.

In short, Tom and Myrtle's relationship allows Fitzgerald to sharply critique the world of the wealthy, old-money class in 1920s New York . By showing Tom's affair with a working-class woman, Nick reveals Tom's ugliest behavior as well as the cruelty of class divisions during the roaring twenties.

Relationship 3: Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker

We've covered the novel's two married couples—the Buchanans and the Wilsons—as well as the affairs of three out of four of those married parties. But there is one more relationship in the novel, one that is a bit disconnected to the others. I'm talking, of course, about Nick and Jordan.

Nick and Jordan Relationship Description

Nick and Jordan are the only couple without any prior contact before the novel begins (aside from Nick apparently seeing her photo once in a magazine and hearing about her attempt to cheat). Jordan is a friend of Daisy's who is staying with her, and Nick meets Jordan when he goes to have dinner with the Buchanans.

We can observe their relationship most closely in Chapters 3 and 4, as Nick gets closer to Jordan despite needing to break off his relationship back home first. However, their relationship takes a back seat in the middle and end of the novel as the drama of Daisy's affair with Gatsby, and Tom's with Myrtle, plays out. So by the end of the novel, Nick sees Jordan is just as self-centered and immoral as Tom and Daisy, and his earlier infatuation fades to disgust. She, in turn, calls him out for not being as honest and careful as he presents himself as.

So what's the story with Nick and Jordan? Why include their relationship at all? Let's dig into what sparks the relationship and the insights they give us into the other characters.

Nick and Jordan Relationship Quotes

I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before. (1.57)

As Nick eyes Jordan in Chapter 1, we see his immediate physical attraction to her , though it's not as potent as Tom's to Myrtle. And similarly to Gatsby's attraction to Daisy being to her money and voice, Nick is pulled in by Jordan's posture, her "wan, charming discontented face"— her attitude and status are more alluring than her looks alone . So Nick's attraction to Jordan gives us a bit of insight both in how Tom sees Myrtle and how Gatsby sees Daisy.

"Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon."

"Of course you will," confirmed Daisy. "In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing——" (1.131-2)

Throughout the novel, we see Nick avoiding getting caught up in relationships—the woman he mentions back home, the woman he dates briefly in his office, Myrtle's sister—though he doesn't protest to being "flung together" with Jordan. Perhaps this is because Jordan would be a step up for Nick in terms of money and class, which speaks to Nick's ambition and class-consciousness , despite the way he paints himself as an everyman. Furthermore, unlike these other women, Jordan isn't clingy—she lets Nick come to her. Nick sees attracted to how detached and cool she is.

"You're a rotten driver," I protested. "Either you ought to be more careful or you oughtn't to drive at all."

"I am careful."

"No, you're not."

"Well, other people are," she said lightly.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"They'll keep out of my way," she insisted. "It takes two to make an accident."

"Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself."

"I hope I never will," she answered. "I hate careless people. That's why I like you."

Her grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. (3.162-70)

Here, Nick is attracted to Jordan's blasé attitude and her confidence that others will avoid her careless behavior—an attitude she can afford because of her money. In other words, Nick seems fascinated by the world of the super-wealthy and the privilege it grants its members.

So just as Gatsby falls in love with Daisy and her wealthy status, Nick also seems attracted to Jordan for similar reasons. However, this conversation not only foreshadows the tragic car accident later in the novel, but it also hints at what Nick will come to find repulsive about Jordan: her callous disregard for everyone but herself .

It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more but of this clean, hard, limited person who dealt in universal skepticism and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired." (4.164)

Nick, again with Jordan, seems exhilarated to be with someone who is a step above him in terms of social class, exhilarated to be a "pursuing" person, rather than just busy or tired . Seeing the usually level-headed Nick this enthralled gives us some insight into Gatsby's infatuation with Daisy, and also allows us to glimpse Nick-the-person, rather than Nick-the-narrator.

And again, we get a sense of what attracts him to Jordan—her clean, hard, limited self, her skepticism, and jaunty attitude. It's interesting to see these qualities become repulsive to Nick just a few chapters later.

Just before noon the phone woke me and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool as if a divot from a green golf links had come sailing in at the office window but this morning it seemed harsh and dry.

"I've left Daisy's house," she said. "I'm at Hempstead and I'm going down to Southampton this afternoon."

Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisy's house, but the act annoyed me and her next remark made me rigid.

"You weren't so nice to me last night."

"How could it have mattered then?" (8.49-53)

Later in the novel, after Myrtle's tragic death, Jordan's casual, devil-may-care attitude is no longer cute—in fact, Nick finds it disgusting . How can Jordan care so little about the fact that someone died, and instead be most concerned with Nick acting cold and distant right after the accident?

In this brief phone conversation, we thus see Nick's infatuation with Jordan ending, replaced with the realization that Jordan's casual attitude is indicative of everything Nick hates about the rich, old money group . So by extension, Nick's relationship with Jordan represents how his feelings about the wealthy have evolved—at first he was drawn in by their cool, detached attitudes, but eventually found himself repulsed by their carelessness and cruelty.

She was dressed to play golf and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little, jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that though there were several she could have married at a nod of her head but I pretended to be surprised. For just a minute I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake, then I thought it all over again quickly and got up to say goodbye.

"Nevertheless you did throw me over," said Jordan suddenly. "You threw me over on the telephone. I don't give a damn about you now but it was a new experience for me and I felt a little dizzy for a while."

We shook hands.

"Oh, and do you remember—" she added, "——a conversation we had once about driving a car?"

"Why—not exactly."

"You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride."

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor." (9.129-135)

In their official break-up, Jordan calls out Nick for claiming to be honest and straightforward but in fact being prone to lying himself . So even as Nick is disappointed in Jordan's behavior, Jordan is disappointed to find just another "bad driver" in Nick, and both seem to mutually agree they would never work as a couple. It's interesting to see Nick called out for dishonest behavior for once. For all of his judging of others, he's clearly not a paragon of virtue, and Jordan clearly recognizes that.

This break-up is also interesting because it's the only time we see a relationship end because the two members choose to walk away from each other—all the other failed relationships (Daisy/Gatsby, Tom/Myrtle, Myrtle/George) ended because one or both members died . So perhaps there is a safe way out of a bad relationship in Gatsby—to walk away early, even if it's difficult and you're still "half in love" with the other person (9.136).

If only Gatsby could have realized the same thing.

Nick and Jordan Relationship Analysis

Nick and Jordan's relationship is interesting, because it's the only straightforward dating we see in the novel (it's neither a marriage nor an illicit affair), and it doesn't serve as an obvious foil to the other relationships. But it does echo Daisy and Gatsby's relationship , in that a poorer man desires a richer girl, and for that reason gives us additional insight into Gatsby's love for Daisy. But it also quietly echoes Tom's relationship with Myrtle , since we Nick seems physically drawn to Jordan as well.

The relationship also is one of the ways we get insight into Nick. For instance, he only really admits to his situation with the woman back at home when he's talking about being attracted to Jordan. "I'd been writing letters once a week and signing them: "Love, Nick," and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free" (3.170). Through Jordan, we actually see Nick experience exhilaration and love and attraction.

Finally, through his relationship with Jordan, we can easily see Nick's evolving attitude toward the wealthy elite. While he allows himself to be charmed at first by this fast-moving, wealthy, and careless world, he eventually becomes disgusted by the utter lack of morality or compassion for others.

Discussion and Essay Topics on Love in The Great Gatsby

These are a few typical essay topics surrounding issues of love, desire, and relationships you should be prepared to write about. Some of them give you the opportunity to zoom in on just one couple, while others have you analyze the relationships in the book more generally. As always, it will be important to close-read, find key lines to use as evidence, and argue your point with a clearly-organized essay. (You can read more of our essay writing tips in our Character Analysis article .) So let's take a look at a few common love and relationships prompts to see this analysis in action!

Is there any couple in The Great Gatsby that has true love?

For any essay topic that asks if characters in a book represent some kind of virtue (whether that's true love, honesty, morality, or anything else), you should start by coming up with a definition of the value . For example, in this case, you should give a definition of "true love," since how you define true love will affect who you choose and how you make your argument.

For example, if you argue that true love comes down to stability, you could potentially argue Tom and Daisy have true love, since they actually remain together, unlike any of the other couples. But if you argue true love is based on strong emotion, you might say Gatsby's love for Daisy is the truest. So however you define true love, make sure to clearly state that definition, since it will shape your argument!

Remember it's also possible in a prompt like this to argue that no one in the book has true love. You would still start by defining true love, but then you would explain why each of the major couples does not have real love, and perhaps briefly explain what element each couple is missing.

Is The Great Gatsby a love story or a satire?

Some essays have you zoom way out and consider what The Great Gatsby's overall genre (or type) is. The most common argument is that, while Gatsby is a tragic love story on the surface (the love of Gatsby and Daisy), it's really more of a satire of wealthy New York society, or a broader critique of the American Dream. This is because the themes of money , society and class, and the American Dream are pretty constant, while the relationships are more of a vehicle to examine those themes.

To argue which genre Gatsby is (whether you say "it's more of a love story" or "it's more of a satire"), define your chosen genre and explain why Gatsby fits the definition . Make sure to include some evidence from the novel's final chapter, no matter what you argue. Endings are important, so make sure you link Gatsby's ending to the genre you believe it is. For example, if you're arguing "Gatsby is a love story," you could emphasize the more hopeful, optimistic parts of Nick's final lines. But if you argue "Gatsby is satire," you would look at the sad, harsh details of the final chapter—Gatsby's sparsely-attended funeral, the crude word scrawled against his back steps, etc. Also, be sure to check out our post on the novel's ending for more analysis.

Is what Gatsby feels for Daisy love, obsession, affection, or accumulation/objectification? What is Fitzgerald's message here?

A really common essay topic/topic of discussion is the question of Gatsby's love for Daisy (and sometimes, Daisy's love for Gatsby): is it real, is it a symbol for something else, and what does it reveal about both Daisy and Gatsby's characters?

As we discussed above, Gatsby's love for Daisy is definitely more intense than Daisy's love for Gatsby, and furthermore, Gatsby's love for Daisy seems tied up in an obsession with her wealth and the status she represents . From there, it's up to you how you argue how you see Gatsby's love for Daisy—whether it's primarily an obsession with wealth, whether Daisy is just an object to be collected, or whether you think Gatsby actually loves Daisy the person, not just Daisy the golden girl.

Analyze the nature of male-female relationships in the novel.

This is a zoomed-out prompt that wants you to talk about the nature of relationships in general in the novel. Still, even though we have clearly identified the five major relationships, it might be complicated for you to try and talk about every single one in depth in just one essay. Instead, it will be more manageable for you to use evidence from two to three of the couples to make your point .

You could explore how the relationships expose that America is in fact a classist society. After all, the only relationship that lasts (Tom and Daisy's) lasts because of the security of being in the same class, while the others fail either due to cross-class dating or one member (Myrtle) desperately trying to break out of her given class.

You could also talk about how the power dynamics within the relationships vary wildly , but only the couple that seems to have a stable relationship is also described as "conspiratorial" and often as a "they"—that is, Tom and Daisy Buchanan. So perhaps Fitzgerald does envision a sort of lasting partnership being possible, if certain conditions (like both members being happy with the amount of money in the marriage) are met.

This prompt and ones like it give you a lot of freedom, but make sure not to bite off more than you chew!

What's Next?

Wondering how else you can pair these characters in an essay? Check out our article on comparing and contrasting the most common character pairings in The Great Gatsby .

Why is money so crucial in the world of the novel? Read more about money and materialism in Gatsby to find out.

Need to get the events of the book straight? Check out our chapter summaries to get a handle on the various parties, liaisons, flashbacks, and deaths. Get started with our book summary here !

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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• Poems About Love Triangles: Navigating the Complexities of the Heart

Love triangles have long been a staple in literature and poetry, exploring the complexities of the human heart and the tangled emotions that arise when multiple individuals are involved. From Shakespearean sonnets to contemporary verses, poets have captured the essence of love triangles, delving into themes of desire, jealousy, and heartbreak. In this article, we will explore a few poignant examples of poems that delve into the intricate dynamics of love triangles.

1. "The Threefold Flame" by Sylvia Plath

2. "love's triangle" by langston hughes, 3. "the love triangle" by rumi.

"The Threefold Flame" by Sylvia Plath is a haunting exploration of a love triangle, delving into themes of desire and betrayal. Plath's vivid imagery and powerful metaphors create an evocative narrative, capturing the complexities of the heart. The poem portrays the agony of being torn between two lovers, torn between loyalty and passion. Here is an excerpt from the poem:

"Two hands lie on my shoulders, Cruel and gentle as the tide, One from the left and one from the right, One whispers, 'stay,' the other, 'go.'

In "Love's Triangle" , Langston Hughes explores the intricate dynamics of a love triangle, delving into themes of longing and unrequited love. Hughes' poetic voice resonates with readers as he beautifully portrays the complexities of romantic entanglements. The poem encapsulates the anguish of loving someone who loves another, causing a triangle of unfulfilled desires. Here is an excerpt from the poem:

"I love you, You love her, She loves him, He loves me."

Rumi, the renowned Persian poet, also delved into the realm of love triangles in his mystical poetry. In "The Love Triangle," Rumi explores the profound connection between love, longing, and spirituality. His verses depict a triangle where God, the lover, and the beloved form an intricate dance. The poem delves into the complexities of divine love and the yearning for union. Here is a glimpse from the poem:

"Through love, all that is bitter will be sweet, Through love, all that is copper will be gold, Through love, all dregs will turn to purest wine, Through love, all pain will turn to medicine."

Love triangles have been a recurring theme in poetry, capturing the essence of human emotions and exploring the complexities of relationships. Through vivid imagery, metaphors, and powerful language, poets have painted intricate portraits of love triangles, depicting the joys, pains, and struggles that arise when the heart is torn between two. From Sylvia Plath's haunting verses to Langston Hughes' poignant words and Rumi's mystical reflections, these poems offer a glimpse into the multifaceted nature of love and desire. So, delve into these poems, and let them transport you into the intricate web of emotions that love triangles can weave.

• Poems about Cars and Love: A Beautiful Intersection of Passion
• Poems Celebrating Black Manhood: Exploring Strength, Resilience, and Identity

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Chemistry and Love: A Poetic Fusion

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The Beauty of Poems Celebrating Mothers

Famous Poems About Mother: Celebrating the Unconditional Love

The Power of Family in Poetry

Love Triangles Explained: Decoding the Drama of Love Triangles in Romance Novels

Ah, the love triangle—the ultimate rollercoaster of emotions in the realm of romance literature. Is there any trope more tantalizing, more tumultuous, and more talked about?

In the vast tapestry of romance literature, few tropes elicit as much fervent discussion and passionate debate as the love triangle. It's a narrative device that has captured the imaginations of readers for generations, weaving a web of intrigue, emotion, and desire that keeps us eagerly turning pages late into the night.

But why is it that love triangles hold such a powerful allure? Is it the magnetic pull of forbidden love? The tantalizing uncertainty of who will ultimately win the protagonist's heart? Or perhaps it's the opportunity to explore the depths of human emotion and desire through the lens of fictional characters.

In this blog post, we're diving headfirst into the heart of this beloved (and sometimes controversial) storytelling device. From exploring the inner workings of love triangles to dissecting their popularity and real-life parallels, we'll unravel the complexities of this timeless trope that has left an indelible mark on romance literature.

So, grab your favorite romance novel, settle into a cozy spot, and join us as we embark on a journey to decode the drama of love triangles in romance novels.

What is the love triangle trope?

Imagine a delicate dance of affection, where not one, but two suitors vie for the affections of our protagonist. The love triangle trope, as the name suggests, revolves around a romantic entanglement between three characters, often leading to a tumultuous journey of self-discovery, heartache, and, of course, passion.

Are love triangles bad?

Some readers adore the delicious tension and emotional depth that love triangles bring to a story, while others find them frustrating or predictable. However, whether love triangles are "bad" ultimately depends on personal preference and how skillfully they are executed within the narrative.

How do love triangles work?

Love triangles typically unfold as the protagonist finds herself torn between two equally compelling love interests. Each suitor offers different qualities, sparking intense chemistry and emotional conflicts. The tension mounts as the protagonist must navigate her feelings and make a choice that will ultimately shape her romantic destiny.

Why are love triangles so popular?

Love triangles tap into a primal aspect of human nature—the desire for connection and the complexity of romantic relationships. They offer a compelling mix of passion, uncertainty, and emotional stakes that keep readers eagerly turning pages. Additionally, love triangles allow for exploration of character dynamics and growth as the protagonist navigates her romantic dilemma.

Do love triangles happen in real life?

They certainly do! While love triangles may seem like a product of fiction, the complexities of romantic relationships in real life can sometimes mirror these dramatic entanglements. Human emotions are messy and unpredictable, and love triangles, albeit perhaps less dramatic, can indeed occur.

How do love triangles end?

In the world of romance novels, love triangles often culminate in a resolution where the protagonist makes a definitive choice between her suitors. This decision can lead to heartbreak for one character and fulfillment for another, ultimately paving the way for a satisfying conclusion.

Love Triangles in Popular New Adult Romantasy and Young Adult Romance Books

Now, let's explore some captivating examples of New Adult Fantasy and Young Adult Fantasy books that skillfully weave the love triangle trope into their narratives. Each of these books masterfully weaves the love triangle trope into the story, adding layers of tension, emotion, and depth to the storylines and characters. Whether you're drawn to epic fantasy battles, dystopian romance, or Victorian-era intrigue, these captivating tales are sure to keep you spellbound until the very last page.

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

First up is Throne of Glass .  In this epic fantasy series, readers are introduced to Celaena Sardothien, an infamous assassin with a complicated past. As Celaena navigates a dangerous world of politics, magic, and intrigue, she finds herself entangled in a gripping love triangle.

On one hand, there's the dashing Captain of the Guard, Chaol Westfall, whose loyalty and strength captivate her. On the other, there's the enigmatic Fae Prince, Dorian Havilliard, whose charm and hidden depths draw her in. As Celaena's feelings for both men deepen, she must confront her own desires and make a choice that will shape not only her destiny but the fate of the kingdom.

"I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius," he whispered. "I claim you as my friend."

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas :

Another masterpiece by Maas is A Court of Thorns and Roses . In this spellbinding fantasy series, readers follow Feyre Archeron, a young huntress thrust into a world of faeries, magic, and danger. As Feyre navigates the treacherous politics of the faerie realm, she finds herself caught in a mesmerizing love triangle.

On one side, there's Tamlin, the powerful High Lord of the Spring Court, whose protective instincts and steadfast devotion offer solace in a world of darkness. On the other, there's Rhysand, the cunning High Lord of the Night Court, whose mysterious allure and unexpected kindness challenge Feyre's perceptions. As tensions rise and loyalties are tested, Feyre must confront her own heart and decide where her true allegiance lies.

"To the stars who listen— and the dreams that are answered."

The Selection" by Kiera Cass

The Selection is a YA romance set in a dystopian society where a lottery determines who will compete for the heart of a prince. The book follows America Singer as she navigates a whirlwind of romance, intrigue, and betrayal. Caught between her duty to her family and her growing feelings for two very different suitors, America finds herself in the midst of a captivating love triangle.

On one side, there's Prince Maxon, whose genuine kindness and dedication to his kingdom stir unexpected emotions in America. On the other, there's Aspen, America's childhood sweetheart and a member of the lower caste, whose presence ignites long-buried passions. As America grapples with her conflicting emotions, she must navigate the complexities of love and duty in a world on the brink of revolution.

"Break my heart. Break it a thousand times if you like. It was only ever yours to break anyway."

The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare

Set in Victorian London, this captivating series follows Tessa Gray as she discovers a world of demons, Shadowhunters, and dark magic. Amidst the danger and intrigue, Tessa finds herself torn between two Shadowhunters, Will Herondale and Jem Carstairs, in a heart-wrenching love triangle. On one side, there's Will, whose sharp wit and brooding demeanor conceal a painful past and a fierce loyalty to those he loves. On the other, there's Jem, whose kindness and compassion offer Tessa solace in a world of darkness. As Tessa's feelings for both men deepen, she must confront the secrets of her own identity and the truth about her heart's desires.

"I am catastrophically in love with you."

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

In this mesmerizing fantasy series, readers are transported to the magical world of Ravka, where darkness threatens to consume everything in its path. Amidst the chaos, we follow Alina Starkov, a young soldier with a hidden power that could save her country from destruction. As Alina navigates the dangers of her newfound abilities, she finds herself torn between two men who represent different paths and possibilities. On one side, there's Mal, her childhood friend and fellow soldier, whose unwavering loyalty and deep connection to Alina offer comfort and stability. On the other, there's the Darkling, a powerful Grisha whose seductive charm and promises of power tempt Alina to embrace a darker path. As Alina grapples with her own destiny and the choices before her, she must confront the truth about love, sacrifice, and the darkness that lies within us all.

"I've been waiting for you a long time, Alina. You and I are going to change the world."

There's No Debate— You Gotta Love a Love Triangle

Love triangles may provoke heated debates among readers, but there's no denying their

enduring allure in the world of romance literature. So, whether you're team #TeamA , #TeamB , or rooting for a surprise contender, one thing's for certain—love triangles are here to stay, keeping us captivated and craving more with each turn of the page.

Did you like this article? Are you ready to embark on an enchanting journey through captivating worlds filled with romance, magic, and thrilling adventures? Look no further! Join my exclusive newsletter community and unlock a treasure trove of fantastical tales that will sweep you off your feet and leave you longing for more.

As a subscriber, you'll gain behind-the-scenes access to exclusive content, including author interviews, sneak peeks, and special giveaways that you won't find anywhere else. Plus, receive personalized recommendations based on your favorite tropes and genres, ensuring that every book you read is a magical adventure waiting to unfold.

So, what are you waiting for? Don't miss out on the chance to join a community of fellow book lovers who share your passion for romance, adventure, and the endless possibilities of the imagination. Sign up for my newsletter today and let the journey begin!

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Home > REGISCOLLEGE_ETDS > THESES > 576

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The love triangle: reasons romantic relationships don't work and how to attain a relationship that does.

Mary Beth Navo , Regis University

First Advisor

McCall, Rona

Thesis Committee Member(s)

Bowie, Thomas

Regis College

Degree Name

Regis College Senior Honors Program

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Number of Pages

This thesis explores intimate relationships and male/female stereotypical behaviors. It defines different behaviors and emotions between men and women, and talks about the influence of the media as it perpetuates stereotypes and reports current trends. Chapter III talks about successful relationships and attachments styles. Chapter IV describes the love triangle and three tools needed for a positive relationship: Realistic expectations, healthy fighting styles and good communication.

Date of Award

Spring 2012

Location (Creation)

Colorado (state); Denver (county); Denver (inhabited place)

© Mary Navo

Rights Statement

All content in this Collection is owned by and subject to the exclusive control of Regis University and the authors of the materials. It is available only for research purposes and may not be used in violation of copyright laws or for unlawful purposes. The materials may not be downloaded in whole or in part without permission of the copyright holder or as otherwise authorized in the “fair use” standards of the U.S. copyright laws and regulations.

Recommended Citation

Navo, Mary Beth, "The Love Triangle: Reasons Romantic Relationships Don'T Work and How to Attain a Relationship that Does" (2012). Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection) . 576. https://epublications.regis.edu/theses/576

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Psychology in Perspective

Love – Perhaps the most elusive of all sensations and a rugged terrain to study. Intangible and complex … can it be conceptualised?

The love triangle.

Triangular Theory of Love by Robert J. Steinberg is a social psychologist’s take on love and relationships. 

It’s not one of those handbook theories that lure people with ‘ 10 secret keys to finding and cultivating love’ ., and – though not offering a normative approach to love, it reflects people’s implicit theories and perceptions of love quite neatly. , the geometric form of th e love triangle is of course a much simplified rendering of reality. it was not conceived as a strict model but as a metaphor for  l o v e. , the theory’s main postulate is to understand and picture love in terms of its 3 main components: intimacy, passion and decision/commitment – each of which form the vertices of a triangle. each component describes a different aspect of love. .

The 3 components are separate but not isolated from each other. In fact, they interact with each other:

For instance, intimacy may lead to greater passion , while commitment may lead to greater intimacy and/or at times to lesser passion in a relationship., second, these components are not fixed or stable entities:, while they form important elements of any love relationship, they can vary greatly from one relationship to another and over time within a given relationship., components can be combined pairwise to yield 6 different kinds of love (in clockwise order):, 1  liking  2  companionate love  3 empty love  4 shallow love  5 mad love   6 romantic love.

The combination of all 3 components results in Complete (or consummate) Love , whereas the total absence of components is referred to as Non-Love . So in total then, you get 8 special cases. 

Most love relationships are impure combinations of several co-existing kinds of love that are present at different rates. 

The Geometry of Love depends upon two factors: amount of love (the area of the triangle) and balance of love (the shape of the triangle).

A small triangle compared to a bigger one can be interpreted as a metaphor for less pronounced love. an equilateral triangle is a perfect example of balanced love, while isosceles or scalene triangles are visual representations of imbalance. .

In reality, love does not just involve a single triangle but multiple triangles, of different size and shape.

For instance, you can compare and contrast idealised love with the reality of a love relationship., you may want to compare how you perceive the love triangle to how your loved one views it., or you can juxtapose triangles of actions that express acts of love and triangles of feelings that describe inner feelings and perceptions of love. .

Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological review, 93(2), 119.

Sternberg, R. J. (1988). Triangulating love. In R. J. Sternberg, & M. L. Barnes (Eds), The psychology of love (pp. 119-138). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Sternberg, R. J. (1997). Construct validation of a triangular love scale. European Journal of Social Psychology, 27(3), 313-335.

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Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”: Theme of Love

• Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”: Theme of…

In the play “Twelfth Night,” Shakespeare explores and illustrates the emotion of love with precise detail. According to “Webster’s New World Dictionary,” love is defined as “a strong affection or liking for someone.” Throughout the play, Shakespeare examines three different types of love: true love, self-love and friendship.

“Twelfth Night” consists of many love triangles, however many of the characters who are tangled up in the web of love are blind to see that their emotions and feelings toward other characters are untrue. They are being deceived by themselves and/or the others around them.

There are certain instances in the play where the emotion of love is true, and the two people involved feel very strongly toward one another. Viola’s love for Orsino is a great example of true love. Although she is pretending to be a man and is virtually unknown in Illyria, she hopes to win the Duke’s heart. In act 1, scene 4, Viola lets out her true feelings for Cesario, “yet a barful strife! Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife (1).”

That statement becomes true when Viola reveals her true identity. Viola and Orsino had a very good friendship, and making the switch to husband and wife was easy. Viola was caught up in another true love scenario, only this time she was on the receiving end, and things didn’t work out so smoothly. During her attempts to court Olivia for Orsino, Olivia grew to love Cesario. Viola was now caught in a terrible situation and there was only one way out, but that would jeopardize her chances with Orsino.

It’s amazing that Olivia could fall for a woman dressed as a man, but because Viola knew what women like to hear, her words won Olivia’s heart. The next case of true love is on a less intimate and romantic scale, and more family-oriented. Viola and Sebastian’s love for one another is a bond felt by all siblings. Through their times of sorrow and mourning for each of their apparent deaths they still loved each other. They believed deep down that maybe in some way or by some miracle that each of them was still alive and well.

Many people, even in today’s society, love themselves more than anything else. “Twelfth Night” addresses the issue of self-love and how it affects peoples’ lives. Malvolio is the easiest to identify with the problem of self-love. He sees himself as a handsome and nobleman.

Malvolio believes many women would love to be with him. He likes to see things one way only, and he deceives himself just to suit his outlook on the situation. For example, in the play, he twists Olivia’s words around to make it sound like she admires his yellow cross-gartered stockings when she really despises them. Both Sir Toby and Olivia show signs of self-love but it is not as big an issue. Sir Toby only cares about himself and no one else, not even his friends.

He ignores Maria’s warnings about drinking into the night, and he continues to push Sir Andrew to court Olivia. Although he believes Sir Andrew doesn’t have a chance. Olivia cares about the people around her, but she also believes that no man is worthy of her beauty. She thinks she is “all that,” and that no one can match her.

Friendship is the third type of love expressed in “Twelfth Night.” The biggest and closest friendship would have to be between Orsino and Cesario. They barely knew each other at first, and before long Orsino was telling Cesario his inner love for Olivia. He even had Cesario running his love messages to Olivia.

The second friendship between Viola and the Sea Captain was not mentioned a lot, but they had a very deep bond between one them. They survived the shipwreck together and the Sea Captain promised to keep Viola’s idea about pretending to be a man a secret. If he had opened his mouth the entire play would have changed.

The third friendship, and definitely the strangest, is between Sir Toby and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. They are close friends but sometimes Sir Toby doesn’t show it. He sets Sir Andrew up and likes to get him into trouble. An example is persuading Sir Andrew to challenge Cesario to a dual, even though he is not a great swordsman and is unaware of Cesario’s ability. On the other hand, Sir Andrew appreciates Sir Toby’s company because he always lifts his spirits and makes him feel like a true knight.

Love plays a major role in “Twelfth Night,” and Shakespeare addresses true love, self-love, and friendship in a very compelling and interesting way. Love is great to read about because everyone deserves a little love. “Twelfth Night” is the true definition of love, and Shakespeare does a great job of explaining a somewhat difficult topic.

Related Posts

• Hermann Hesse Narcissus and Goldmund: "Love" Theme
• Twelfth Night: Malvolio Character Analysis
• Merchant of Venice Act II: Theme of Love
• Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: Act I-V Summaries
• Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: Deception & Disguises

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Home Essay Samples Literature Twelfth Night

The Theme of Love in "Twelfth Night"

Table of contents, types of love, unrequited love's impact, love's whimsical nature, love's transformative power.

• Shakespeare, W. (1623). Twelfth Night, Or What You Will. First Folio.
• Garber, M. (1994). Coming of Age in Shakespeare. Routledge.
• Greenblatt, S. (Ed.). (2012). The Norton Shakespeare. W. W. Norton & Company.
• Mowat, B. A., & Werstine, P. (Eds.). (2013). Twelfth Night (No Fear Shakespeare). SparkNotes.
• Stallybrass, P., & White, A. R. (1986). The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Cornell University Press.

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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Towards a comprehensive theory of love: the quadruple theory.

• Independent Researcher, San Diego, CA, United States

Scholars across an array of disciplines including social psychologists have been trying to explain the meaning of love for over a century but its polysemous nature has made it difficult to fully understand. In this paper, a quadruple framework of attraction, resonance or connection, trust, and respect are proposed to explain the meaning of love. The framework is used to explain how love grows and dies and to describe brand love, romantic love, and parental love. The synergistic relationship between the factors and how their variations modulate the intensity or levels of love are discussed.

Introduction

Scholars across an array of disciplines have tried to define the meaning and nature of love with some success but questions remain. Indeed, it has been described as a propensity to think, feel, and behave positively toward another ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986 ). However, the application of this approach has been unsuccessful in all forms of love ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Some social psychologists have tried to define love using psychometric techniques. Robert Sternberg Triangular Theory of Love and Clyde and Susan Hendrick’s Love Attitudes Scale (LAS) are notable attempts to employ the psychometric approach ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986 ; Sternberg, 1986 ). However, data analysis from the administration of the LAS, Sternberg’s scale and the Passionate Love Scale by Hatfield and Sprecher’s (1986) found a poor association with all forms of love ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1989 ). Other studies have found a poor correlation between these and other love scales with different types of love ( Whitley, 1993 ; Sternberg, 1997 ; Masuda, 2003 ; Graham and Christiansen, 2009 ).

In recent years, the neuropsychological approach to study the nature of love has gained prominence. Research has compared the brain activity of people who were deeply in love while viewing a picture of their partner and friends of the same age using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and concluded that there is a specialized network of the brain involved in love ( Bartels and Zeki, 2000 ). Indeed, several lines of investigation using fMRI have described a specialized area of the brain mediating maternal love ( Noriuchi et al., 2008 ; Noriuchi and Kikuchi, 2013 ) and, fMRI studies have implicated multiple brain systems particularly the reward system in romantic love ( Aron et al., 2005 ; Fisher et al., 2005 , 2010 ; Beauregard et al., 2009 ). Brain regions including ventral tegmental area, anterior insula, ventral striatum, and supplementary motor area have been demonstrated to mediate social and material reward anticipation ( Gu et al., 2019 ). Although brain imaging provides a unique insight into the nature of love, making sense of the psychological significance or inference of fMRI data is problematic ( Cacioppo et al., 2003 ).

Also, there has been growing interests in the neurobiology of love. Indeed, evidence suggests possible roles for oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, cortisol, morphinergic system, and nerve growth factor in love and attachment ( Esch and Stefano, 2005 ; De Boer et al., 2012 ; Seshadri, 2016 ; Feldman, 2017 ). However, in many cases, definite proof is still lacking and the few imaging studies on love are limited by selection bias on the duration of a love affair, gender and cultural differences ( De Boer et al., 2012 ).

So, while advances have been made in unraveling the meaning of love, questions remain and a framework that can be employed to understand love in all its forms remains to be developed or proposed. The objective of this article is to propose a novel framework that can be applied to all forms of love.

Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Development (The AAC Model)

In the past few decades, the psychological literature has defined and described different forms of love and from these descriptions, the role of attraction, attachment-commitment, and caregiving (AAC), appears to be consistent in all forms of love.

Attraction theory is one of the first approaches to explain the phenomenon of love and several studies and scholarly works have described the importance of attraction in different forms of love ( Byrne and Griffitt, 1973 ; Berscheid and Hatfield, 1978 ; Fisher et al., 2006 ; Braxton-Davis, 2010 ; Grant-Jacob, 2016 ). Attraction has been described as an evolutionary adaptation of humans for mating, reproduction, and parenting ( Fisher et al., 2002a , 2006 ).

The role of attachment in love has also been extensively investigated. Attachment bonds have been described as a critical feature of mammals including parent-infant, pair-bonds, conspecifics, and peers ( Feldman, 2017 ). Indeed, neural networks including the interaction of oxytocin and dopamine in the striatum have been implicated in attachment bonds ( Feldman, 2017 ). The key features of attachment include proximity maintenance, safety and security, and separation distress ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Multiple lines of research have proposed that humans possess an innate behavioral system of attachment that is essential in love ( Harlow, 1958 ; Bowlby, 1977 , 1988 , 1989 ; Ainsworth, 1985 ; Hazan and Shaver, 1987 ; Bretherton, 1992 ; Carter, 1998 ; Burkett and Young, 2012 ). Attachment is essential to commitment and satisfaction in a relationship ( Péloquin et al., 2013 ) and commitment leads to greater intimacy ( Sternberg, 1986 ).

Also, several lines of evidence have described the role of caregiving in love. It has been proposed that humans possess an inborn caregiving system that complements their attachment system ( Bowlby, 1973 ; Ainsworth, 1985 ). Indeed, several studies have used caregiving scale and compassionate love scale, to describe the role of caring, concern, tenderness, supporting, helping, and understanding the other(s), in love and relationships ( Kunce and Shaver, 1994 ; Sprecher and Fehr, 2005 ). Mutual communally responsive relationships in which partners attend to one another’s needs and welfare with the expectation that the other will return the favor when their own needs arise ( Clark and Mills, 1979 ; Clark and Monin, 2006 ), have been described as key in all types of relationships including friendship, family, and romantic and compassionate love ( Berscheid, 2010 ).

Attachment and caregiving reinforce each other in relationships. Evidence suggests that sustained caregiving is frequently accompanied by the growth of familiarity between the caregiver and the receiver ( Bowlby, 1989 , p. 115) strengthening attachment ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Several studies have proposed that attachment has a positive influence on caregiving behavior in love and relationships ( Carnelley et al., 1996 ; Collins and Feeney, 2000 ; Feeney and Collins, 2001 ; Mikulincer, 2006 ; Canterberry and Gillath, 2012 ; Péloquin et al., 2013 ).

The AAC model can be seen across the literature on love. Robert Sternberg triangular theory of love which proposes that love has three components —intimacy, passion, and commitment ( Sternberg, 1986 ), essentially applies the AAC model. Passion, a key factor in his theory, is associated with attraction ( Berscheid and Hatfield, 1978 ), and many passionate behaviors including increased energy, focused attention, intrusive thinking, obsessive following, possessive mate guarding, goal-oriented behaviors and motivation to win and keep a preferred mating partner ( Fisher et al., 2002b , 2006 ; Fisher, 2005 ). Also, evidence indicates that attachment is central to intimacy, another pillar of the triangular theory ( Morris, 1982 ; Feeney and Noller, 1990 ; Oleson, 1996 ; Grabill and Kent, 2000 ). Commitment, the last pillar of the triangular theory, is based on interdependence and social exchange theories ( Stanley et al., 2010 ), which is connected to mutual caregiving and secure attachment.

Hendrick and Hendrick’s (1986) , Love Attitudes Scale (LAS) which measures six types of love ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986 ) is at its core based on the AAC model. Similarly, numerous works on love ( Rubin, 1970 ; Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986 ; Fehr, 1994 ; Grote and Frieze, 1994 ), have applied one or all of the factors in the ACC model. Berscheid (2010) , proposed four candidates for a temporal model of love including companionate love, romantic love, and compassionate love and adult attachment love. As described, these different types of love (romantic, companionate, compassionate, and attachment) all apply at least one or all of the factors in the AAC model.

New Theory (The Quadruple Framework)

The AAC model can be fully captured by four fundamental factors; attraction, connection or resonance, trust, and respect, providing a novel framework that could explain love in all its forms. Table 1 shows the core factors of love, and the four factors derived from them.

Table 1. Factors of love.

Evidence suggests that both attachment and attraction play a role in obsession or passion observed in love ( Fisher et al., 2005 ; Honari and Saremi, 2015 ). Attraction is influenced by the value or appeal perceived from a relationship and this affects commitment ( Rusbult, 1980 ).

Connection or Resonance

Connection is key to commitment, caregiving, and intimacy. It creates a sense of oneness in relationships and it is strengthened by proximity, familiarity, similarity, and positive shared experiences ( Sullivan et al., 2011 ; Beckes et al., 2013 ). Homogeneity or similarity has been observed to increase social capital and engagement among people ( Costa and Kahn, 2003a , b ), and it has been described as foundational to human relationships ( Tobore, 2018 , pp. 6–13). Research indicates that similarity plays a key role in attachment and companionship as people are more likely to form long-lasting and successful relationships with those who are more similar to themselves ( Burgess and Wallin, 1954 ; Byrne, 1971 ; Berscheid and Reis, 1998 ; Lutz-Zois et al., 2006 ). Proximity plays a key role in caregiving as people are more likely to show compassion to those they are familiar with or those closest to them ( Sprecher and Fehr, 2005 ). Similarity and proximity contribute to feelings of familiarity ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Also, caregiving and empathy are positively related to emotional interdependence ( Hatfield et al., 1994 ).

Trust is crucial for love ( Esch and Stefano, 2005 ) and it plays an important role in relationship intimacy and caregiving ( Rempel and Holmes, 1985 ; Wilson et al., 1998 ; Salazar, 2015 ), as well as attachment ( Rodriguez et al., 2015 ; Bidmon, 2017 ). Familiarity is a sine qua non for trust ( Luhmann, 1979 ), and trust is key to relationship satisfaction ( Simpson, 2007 ; Fitzpatrick and Lafontaine, 2017 ).

Respect is cross-cultural and universal ( Frei and Shaver, 2002 ; Hendrick et al., 2010 ) and has been described as fundamental in love ( Hendrick et al., 2011 ). It plays a cardinal role in interpersonal relations at all levels ( Hendrick et al., 2010 ). Indeed, it is essential in relationship commitment and satisfaction ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 2006 ) and relationship intimacy and attachment ( Alper, 2004 ; Hendrick et al., 2011 ).

Synergetic Interactions of the Four Factors

Connection and attraction.

Similarity, proximity, and familiarity are all important in connection because they promote attachment and a sense of oneness in a relationship ( Sullivan et al., 2011 ; Beckes et al., 2013 ). Research indicates that proximity ( Batool and Malik, 2010 ) and familiarity positively influence attraction ( Norton et al., 2015 ) and several lines of evidence suggests that people are attracted to those similar to themselves ( Sykes et al., 1976 ; Wetzel and Insko, 1982 ; Montoya et al., 2008 ; Batool and Malik, 2010 ; Collisson and Howell, 2014 ). Also, attraction mediates similarity and familiarity ( Moreland and Zajonc, 1982 ; Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ).

Respect and Trust

Evidence suggests that respect promotes trust ( Ali et al., 2012 ).

Connection, Respect, Trust, and Attraction

Trust affects attraction ( Singh et al., 2015 ). Trust and respect can mediate attitude similarity and promote attraction ( Singh et al., 2016 ).

So, although these factors can operate independently, evidence suggests that the weakening of one factor could negatively affect the others and the status of love. Similarly, the strengthening of one factor positively modulates the others and the status of love.

Relationships are dynamic and change as events and conditions in the environment change ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Love is associated with causal conditions that respond to these changes favorably or negatively ( Berscheid, 2010 ). In other words, as conditions change, and these factors become present, love is achieved and if they die, it fades. Figure 1 below explains how love grows and dies. Point C in the figure explains the variations in the intensity or levels of love and this variation is influenced by the strength of each factor. The stronger the presence of all factors, the higher the intensity and the lower, the weaker the intensity of love. The concept of non-love is similar to the “non-love” described in Sternberg’s triangular theory of love in which all components of love are absent ( Sternberg, 1986 ).

Figure 1. Description: (A) Presence of love (all factors are present). (B) Absence of love (state of non-love or state where all factors are latent or dormant). (C) Different levels of love due to variations in the four factors. (D) Movement from non-love toward love (developmental stage: at least one but not all four factors are present). (E) Movement away from love toward non-love (decline stage: at least one or more of the four factors are absent).

Application of the Quadruple Framework on Romantic, Brand and Parental Love

Romantic, parental and brand love have been chosen to demonstrate the role of these factors and their interactions in love because there is significant existing literature on them. However, they can be applied to understand love in all its forms.

Romantic Love

Attraction and romantic love.

Attraction involves both physical and personality traits ( Braxton-Davis, 2010 ; Karandashev and Fata, 2014 ). To this end, attraction could be subdivided into sexual or material and non-sexual or non-material attraction. Sexual or material attraction includes physical attributes such as beauty, aesthetics, appeal, wealth, etc. In contrast, non-sexual or non-material attraction includes characteristics such as personality, social status, power, humor, intelligence, character, confidence, temperament, honesty, good quality, kindness, integrity, etc. Both types of attraction are not mutually exclusive.

Romantic love has been described as a advanced form of human attraction system ( Fisher et al., 2005 ) and it fits with the passion component of Sternberg’s triangular theory of love which he described as the quickest to recruit ( Sternberg, 1986 ). Indeed, research indicates that physical attractiveness and sensual feelings are essential in romantic love and dating ( Brislin and Lewis, 1968 ; Regan and Berscheid, 1999 ; Luo and Zhang, 2009 ; Braxton-Davis, 2010 ; Ha et al., 2010 ; Guéguen and Lamy, 2012 ) and sexual attraction often provides the motivational spark that kickstarts a romantic relationship ( Gillath et al., 2008 ). Behavioral data suggest that love and sex drive follow complementary pathways in the brain ( Seshadri, 2016 ). Indeed, the neuroendocrine system for sexual attraction and attachment appears to work synergistically motivating individuals to both prefer a specific mating partner and to form an attachment to that partner ( Seshadri, 2016 ). Sex promotes the activity of hormones involved in love including arginine vasopressin in the ventral pallidum, oxytocin in the nucleus accumbens and stimulates dopamine release which consequently motivates preference for a partner and strengthens attachment or pair-bonding ( Seshadri, 2016 ).

Also, romantic love is associated with non-material attraction. Research indicates that many people are attracted to their romantic partner because of personality traits like generosity, kindness, warmth, humor, helpfulness, openness to new ideas ( Giles, 2015 , pp. 168–169). Findings from a research study on preferences in human mate selection indicate that personality traits such as kindness/considerate and understanding, exciting, and intelligent are strongly preferred in a potential mate ( Buss and Barnes, 1986 ). Indeed, character and physical attractiveness have been found to contribute jointly and significantly to romantic attraction ( McKelvie and Matthews, 1976 ).

Attraction is key to commitment in a romantic relationship ( Rusbult, 1980 ), indicating that without attraction a romantic relationship could lose its luster. Also, romantic attraction is weakened or declines as the reason for its presence declines or deteriorates. If attraction is sexual or due to material characteristics, then aging or any accident that compromises physical beauty would result in its decline ( Braxton-Davis, 2010 ). Loss of fortune or social status could also weaken attraction and increase tension in a relationship. Indeed, tensions about money increase marital conflicts ( Papp et al., 2009 ; Dew and Dakin, 2011 ) and predicted subsequent divorce ( Amato and Rogers, 1997 ).

Connection and Romantic Love

Connection or resonance fits with the intimacy, and commitment components of Sternberg’s triangular theory of love ( Sternberg, 1986 ). Connection in romantic love involves intimacy, friendship or companionship and caregiving and it is strengthened by novelty, proximity, communication, positive shared experiences, familiarity, and similarity. It is what creates a sense of oneness between romantic partners and it is expressed in the form of proximity seeking and maintenance, concern, and compassion ( Neto, 2012 ). Evidence suggests that deeper levels of emotional involvement or attachment increase commitment and cognitive interdependence or tendency to think about the relationship in a pluralistic manner, as reflected in the use of plural pronouns to describe oneself, romantic partner and relationship ( Agnew et al., 1998 ).

Research indicates that both sexual attraction and friendship are necessary for romantic love ( Meyers and Berscheid, 1997 ; Gillath et al., 2008 ; Berscheid, 2010 ), indicating that connection which is essential for companionship plays a key role in romantic love. A study on college students by Hendrick and Hendrick (1993) found that a significant number of the students described their romantic partner as their closest friend ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1993 ), reinforcing the importance of friendship or companionship in romantic love.

Similarity along the lines of values, goals, religion, nationality, career, culture, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, language, etc. is essential in liking and friendship in romantic love ( Berscheid and Reis, 1998 ). Research indicates that a partner who shared similar values and interests were more likely to experience stronger love ( Jin et al., 2017 ). Indeed, the more satisfied individuals were with their friendships the more similar they perceived their friends to be to themselves ( Morry, 2005 ). Also, similarity influences perceptions of familiarity ( Moreland and Zajonc, 1982 ), and familiarity plays a role in the formation of attachment and connectedness because it signals safety and security ( Bowlby, 1977 ). Moreover, similarity and familiarity affect caregiving. Sprecher and Fehr (2005) , found compassion or caregiving were lower for strangers, and greatest for dating and marital relationships, indicating that similarity and familiarity enhance intimacy and positively influences caregiving ( Sprecher and Fehr, 2005 ).

Proximity through increased exposure is known to promote liking ( Saegert et al., 1973 ), familiarity and emotional connectedness ( Sternberg, 1986 ; Berscheid, 2010 ). Exposure through fun times and direct and frequent communication is essential to maintaining and strengthening attachment and connectedness ( Sternberg and Grajek, 1984 ). In Sternberg’s triangular theory, effective communication is described as essential and affects the intimacy component of a relationship ( Sternberg, 1986 ). Indeed, intimacy grows from a combination of mutual self-disclosure and interactions mediated by positive partner responsiveness ( Laurenceau et al., 1998 , 2005 ; Manne et al., 2004 ), indicating that positive feedback and fun times together strengthens connection.

Also, sexual activity is an important component of the reward system that reinforces emotional attachment ( Seshadri, 2016 ), indicating that sexual activity may increase emotional connectedness and intimacy. Over time in most relationships, predictability grows, and sexual satisfaction becomes readily available. This weakens the erotic and emotional experience associated with romantic love ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Research shows that a reduction in novelty due to the monotony of being with the same person for a long period is the reason for this decline in sexual attraction ( Freud and Rieff, 1997 , p. 57; Sprecher et al., 2006 , p. 467). According to Sternberg (1986) , the worst enemy of the intimacy component of love is stagnation. He explained that too much predictability can erode the level of intimacy in a close relationship ( Sternberg, 1986 ). So, novelty is essential to maintaining sexual attraction and strengthening connection in romantic love.

Jealousy and separation distress which are key features of romantic love ( Fisher et al., 2002b ), are actions to maintain and protect the emotional union and are expressions of a strong connection. Research has found a significant correlation between anxiety and love ( Hatfield et al., 1989 ) and a positive link between romantic love and jealousy in stable relationships ( Mathes and Severa, 1981 ; Aune and Comstock, 1991 ; Attridge, 2013 ; Gomillion et al., 2014 ). Indeed, individuals who feel strong romantic love tend to be more jealous or sensitive to threats to their relationship ( Orosz et al., 2015 ).

Connection in romantic love is weakened by distance, a dearth of communication, unsatisfactory sexual activity, divergences or dissimilarity of values and interests, monotony and too much predictability.

Trust and Romantic Love

Trust is the belief that a partner is, and will remain, reliable or dependable ( Cook, 2003 ). Trust in romantic love fits with the intimacy, and commitment components of Sternberg’s triangular theory of love which includes being able to count on the loved one in times of need, mutual understanding with the loved one, sharing of one’s self and one’s possessions with the loved one and maintaining the relationship ( Sternberg, 1986 ).

It has been proposed that love activates specific regions in the reward system which results in a reduction in emotional judgment and fear ( Seshadri, 2016 ). This reduced fear or trust has been identified as one of the most important characteristics of a romantic relationship and essential to fidelity, commitment, monogamy, emotional vulnerability, and intimacy ( Laborde et al., 2014 ). Indeed, trust can deepen intimacy, increase commitment and increase mutual monogamy, and make a person lower their guards in the belief that they are safe from harm ( Larzelere and Huston, 1980 ; Bauman and Berman, 2005 ). People with high trust in romantic relationships tend to expect that their partner will act in their interest causing them to prioritize relationship dependence over making themselves invulnerable from harm or self-protection ( Luchies et al., 2013 ). In contrast, people with low trust in their partner tend to be unsure about whether their partner will act in their interests and prioritize insulating themselves from harm over relationship dependence ( Luchies et al., 2013 ).

Trust takes time to grow into a romantic relationship. Indeed, people in a relationship come to trust their partners when they see that their partner’s action and behavior moves the relationship forward or acts in the interest of the relationship and not themself ( Wieselquist et al., 1999 ). Research indicates that trust is associated with mutual self-disclosure ( Larzelere and Huston, 1980 ), and positive partner responsiveness which are both essential to the experience of friendship and intimacy in romantic relationships ( Larzelere and Huston, 1980 ; Reis and Shaver, 1988 ; Laurenceau et al., 1998 ).

Also, trust influences caregiving and compassion. Evidence suggests that compassion is positively related to trust ( Salazar, 2015 ). Mutual communal responsiveness or caregiving in relationships in which partners attend to one another’s needs and welfare is done because they are confident that the other will do the same when or if their own needs arise ( Clark and Monin, 2006 ). Repeated acts of communal responsiveness given with no expectation of payback provide a partner with a sense of security and trust and increase the likelihood that they will be communally responsive if or when the need arises ( Clark and Monin, 2006 ), and contributes to a sense of love in romantic relationships ( Berscheid, 2010 ).

Loss or weakening of trust could spell the end of romantic love. Indeed, mistrust corrupts intimacy and often indicates that a relationship has ended or near its end ( LaFollette and Graham, 1986 ) and it makes mutual monogamy, and commitment difficult to achieve in a romantic relationship ( Towner et al., 2015 ). A study on individuals who had fallen out of romantic love with their spouse found that loss of trust and intimacy was part of the reason for the dissolution of love ( Sailor, 2013 ).

Respect and Romantic Love

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that respect is expected in both friendships and romantic relationships ( Gaines, 1994 , 1996 ). In romantic love, it entails consideration, admiration, high regard, and value for the loved one as a part of one’s life ( Sternberg and Grajek, 1984 ; Hendrick et al., 2011 ).

Gottman (1999) , found that the basis for a stable and satisfactory marital relationship is friendship filled with fondness and admiration ( Gottman, 1999 ). Respect is considered one of the most important things married couples want from their partner ( Gottman, 1994 ). Grote and Frieze (1994) , found that respect correlates with companionate or friendship love ( Grote and Frieze, 1994 ), indicating that respect is essential to intimacy and relationship satisfaction. Also, respect is positively correlated with passion, altruism, self-disclosure, and relationship overall satisfaction ( Frei and Shaver, 2002 ; Hendrick and Hendrick, 2006 ). It is associated with the tendency to overlook a partner’s negative behavior or respond with pro-relationship actions or compassion to their shortcomings ( Rusbult et al., 1998 ; Gottman, 1999 ).

Absence or a lack of respect could spell the end of romantic love. Research indicates that there is an expectation of mutual respect in friendship and most relationships and people reacted negatively when this expectation is violated ( Hendrick et al., 2011 ), indicating that a lack of respect could negatively affect commitment and attraction. Indeed, denial of respect is an important negative behavior in friendships and most relationships ( Gaines, 1994 , 1996 ) and a lack of respect is a violation of what it means to love one ‘s partner in a close romantic relationship ( Hendrick et al., 2011 ). Gottman (1993 , 1994) identified contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling as four of the relationally destructive behavior and he labeled them as “the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”

Romantic love summary

Romantic love involves the interactions and synergistic interplay between respect, connection, trust, and attraction. All four must be present in love. Any event that results in the loss of any of these factors could cause romantic love to gradually decline and unless effort is made to replenish it, it will eventually fade or collapse. Romantic love is dynamic and requires significant investment from both partners to keep it alive.

Parental Love

Attraction and parental love.

Attraction plays an essential role in parental love and it could be material or non-material. Material attraction involves the child’s health, gender, accomplishments or success, and attractiveness. In contrast, non-material attraction includes traits such as intelligence, character, and other personality traits.

Evidence suggests that culture influences gender preference with attraction greater for sons in most cases ( Cronk, 1993 ). Indeed, mothers and fathers have been found to favor the more intelligent and more ambitious/industrious child ( Lauricella, 2009 ). Also, parental perception that investment in a child will cost more than the benefits to be gained from taking care of the child might influence negative behavior toward the child. Indeed, multiple lines of evidence suggest that parental unemployment increases the rates of child maltreatment and abuse ( Steinberg et al., 1981 ; Lindo et al., 2013 ). Research indicates that teen mothers who have poor social support reported greater unhappiness, were at greater risk for child abuse and often employed the use of physical punishment toward their child ( Haskett et al., 1994 ; de Paúl and Domenech, 2000 ).

Also, several studies have suggested that parents tended to favor healthy children ( Mann, 1992 ; Barratt et al., 1996 ; Hagen, 1999 ). However, when resources are plentiful, parents tend to invest equally in less healthy or high-risk children ( Beaulieu and Bugental, 2008 ), because they have abundant resources to go around without compromising the reproductive value of healthy children ( Lauricella, 2009 ).

Connection and Parental Love

Connection creates a sense of oneness between parent and child and involves caregiving, intimacy, and attachment. It is influenced by proximity, positive and unique shared experiences, and similarity along virtually every dimension between parent and child.

Proximity, and similarity increases attachment and intimacy between parent and child. Research shows that parents are perceived as favoring genetically related children ( Salmon et al., 2012 ), and evidence suggests that paternal resemblance predicted paternal favoritism ( Lauricella, 2009 ). Parental proximity and similarity to a biological child are unique because it is based on genes and blood. In contrast, intimacy between a parent and an adopted child is based solely on shared experiences and proximity and takes time to grow and on many occasions may not develop ( Hooks, 1990 ; Hughes, 1999 ).

Dissimilarities or discrepancy in values, attitudes, etc., can create problems between children and parents and can have a profound effect on their relationship. Indeed, evidence suggests that the rebel child tended to be less close to the parents ( Rohde et al., 2003 ). Research has found that adolescents who are less religious than their parents tend to experience lower-quality relationships with their parents which results in higher rates of both internalizing and externalizing symptoms ( Kim-Spoon et al., 2012 ). When parents and family members were very religious, and a child comes out as an atheist, relationship quality could suffer in the form of rejection, anger, despair, or an inability to relate to one another ( Zimmerman et al., 2015 ). A study of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youngsters, for patterns of disclosure of sexual orientation to families, found that those who had disclosed reported verbal and physical abuse by parents and family members ( D’Augelli et al., 1998 ). Honor killing of female children which have been reported in Pakistan and some parts of the Middle East because of deviation from traditional gender roles or crossing of social boundaries that are deemed as taboo in their culture ( Lindsey and Sarah, 2010 ), is another example of the negative effects of the discrepancy in values between parents and child.

Unique shared experiences between parent and child could increase connection. Bank (1988) observed that the development of favoritism seems to require that the “child’s conception or birth be unusual or stressful,” ( Bank, 1988 ). Evidence suggests that parents most favored child tended to be last-born child and this is linked to their unique position, vulnerability and neediness ( Rohde et al., 2003 ). Also, proximity, positive experiences and time spent together increases connection and intimacy. Research indicates that parents tend to give more love and support to the grown child they were historically closest to and got along with ( Siennick, 2013 ). A study of primiparous women found that mothers with greater contact with their infants were more reluctant to leave them with someone else, and engaged more intimately with their child ( Klaus et al., 1972 ).

Divorce could create distance between a parent and child, weakening connection and intimacy. Indeed, one of the outcomes of divorce is the lessening of contact between divorced non-custodial fathers and their children ( Appleby and Palkovitz, 2007 ), and this can reduce intimacy ( Guttmann and Rosenberg, 2003 ).

Also, parental separation distress, worry, and concern for their child’s welfare, academic performance, and future are expressions of connection and a lack thereof is a sign of poor connection. Indeed, the levels of concern and worry expressed between children and their parents influenced their perceptions of the relationship quality ( Hay et al., 2007 ).

Trust and Parental Love

Trust is essential to parental attachment, intimacy, and caregiving. When there is mistrust, attachment and intimacy between a parent and their child are disrupted or unable to blossom. In Africa and many parts of the world, there have been reports of children being condemned and abandoned by their parents simply because they are tagged as witches with mysterious evil powers ( Tedam, 2014 ; Bartholomew, 2015 ; Briggs and Whittaker, 2018 ). The tag of “witchcraft” stirs up fear and anger, causing the child to be perceived as a deadly threat which inevitably damages attachment, intimacy and eliminates the need for caregiving.

Research has found that firstborn children were most likely to be chosen as those to whom mothers would turn when facing personal problems or crises ( Suitor and Pillemer, 2007 ). This tendency may be linked to trust. Moreover, evidence suggests that the rebel child tended to be less close to the parents ( Rohde et al., 2003 ). In other words, the more obedient, and reliable child is likely to gain the confidence and intimacy of the parents. In contrast, the disobedient and unreliable child is excluded or kept at a distance. Also, trust and poor connection could influence inheritance and disinheritance decisions. Indeed, estrangement, alienation and disaffection of a parent toward a child could result in disinheritance ( Batts, 1990 ; Brashier, 1994 , 1996 ; Foster, 2001 ; Arroyo et al., 2016 ).

Respect and Parental Love

Respect in parental love entails treating the child with consideration and regard. This consideration and regard for the child are essential to intimacy, caregiving and attachment. Indeed, respect is foundational to a harmonious relationship between parent and child ( Dixon et al., 2008 ). Evidence suggests that humans possess an innate behavioral system that leads them to form an attachment to a familiar person who provides care, comfort, and protection ( Harlow, 1958 ; Bowlby, 1989 ). Repeated acts of caregiving contribute to a sense of love in all types of relationships ( Berscheid, 2010 ), reinforcing the role of parental caregiving in fostering intimacy and attachment with the child.

Taking care of an infant’s needs, and making sure they are safe and well, all fall under consideration and regard for the child. Child abuse and neglect ( Tedam, 2014 ; Bartholomew, 2015 ; Briggs and Whittaker, 2018 ), is a display of a lack of consideration for the child’s need.

Also, respect in parental love involves admiration. Research has found that fathers treated more ambitious/industrious sons with high regard, and both parents favored the more intelligent and more ambitious/industrious daughters ( Lauricella, 2009 ) indicating that a child that engages in activities or behavior that is highly regarded by their parents may gain favor with their parents, strengthening intimacy and vice versa.

Parental love summary

Parental love involves the interactions and synergistic interplay between respect, connection, trust, and attraction. Any event that results in the loss of any of these factors could cause parental love to gradually decline. In many cases, the behavior and actions of a child significantly influence parental love.

Brand love has been defined as the level of passionate emotional attachment a satisfied or happy consumer has for a brand and evidence suggests it is very similar to interpersonal love ( Russo et al., 2011 ).

Attraction and Brand Love

Attraction plays an essential role in brand love. Material attraction for a brand includes attributes like superior design, quality, and aesthetics, price, benefits, etc. Non-material attraction involves social status symbol, brand personality, uniqueness, distinctiveness, user experience, image, etc. evidence suggests that when talking about loved brands, people often talk passionately about the brand’s many attractive qualities such as its exceptional performance, good-looking design, value for money, and other positive attributes ( Fournier, 1998 ; Whang et al., 2004 ; Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006 ; Batra et al., 2012 ). Research on brand love has found that brand attractive attributes such as prestige or uniqueness influence brand passion which affects relevant factors such as purchase intention ( Bauer et al., 2007 ).

Also, brand attraction influences brand loyalty, and commitment. Indeed, research indicates that brand benefits influences brand loyalty or commitment ( Huang et al., 2016 ). Brand personality (image, distinctiveness, and self-expressive value) is strongly associated with brand identification and loyalty ( Kim et al., 2001 ; Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ).

Connection and Brand Love

Connection is essential to brand love. It involves brand attachment, commitment, and intimacy and it is strengthened by brand identification, image, familiarity or awareness, proximity, length or frequency of usage and similarity or congruences along virtually every dimension including values, lifestyle, goals, etc. between brand and customer. Brand awareness which means brand familiarity has been described as essential for people to identify with a brand ( Pascual and Académico, 2015 ), and it indirectly affects current purchases ( Esch et al., 2006 ).

Also, brand identification promotes a sense of oneness between a brand and a customer strengthening commitment and it is driven by brand self-similarity, brand prestige and brand distinctiveness ( Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2008 ). Indeed, brand identification contributes to the development of brand love and brand loyalty ( Alnawas and Altarifi, 2016 ) and brand image and identification influence loyalty and positive word of mouth ( Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006 ; Batra et al., 2012 ; Anggraeni and Rachmanita, 2015 ). Brand identity, values and lifestyle similarities to those of the customer appear to have a strong and significant relationship with brand love ( Batra et al., 2012 ; Rauschnabel and Ahuvia, 2014 ; Alnawas and Altarifi, 2016 ; Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ). Findings from research suggest that customer-to-customer similarity and sense of community drive consumer brand identification, loyalty, and engagement ( Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen, 2010 ; Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ).

Moreover, proximity and interaction play a role in brand love. Indeed, the duration of the relationship between a customer and a brand is essential in brand love ( Albert et al., 2007 ). Fournier (1998) , discussed interdependence which involved frequent brand interactions as necessary for a strong brand relationship ( Fournier, 1998 ). Similarly, Batra et al. (2012) found that having a long-term relationship, positive emotional connection and frequent interactions with a brand was an important aspect of brand love ( Batra et al., 2012 ). Indeed, shared experiences and history between a person and a brand can increase their emotional attachment, make the brand to become an important part of the person’s identity narrative and increases their loyalty to the brand ( Thomson et al., 2005 ; Pedeliento et al., 2016 ).

Just like romantic love, concern and worry and proximity seeking, or maintenance are an expression of emotional connectedness to the brand. Indeed, anticipated separation distress has been described as a core element of brand love ( Batra et al., 2012 ), and consumers are likely to feel strong desires to maintain proximity with their loved objects, even feeling “separation distress” when they are distanced from them ( Thomson et al., 2005 ; Park et al., 2010 ).

Also, novelty through continued innovation is vital to maintaining and strengthening both attraction and connection. According to the Harvard business review, the relationship between brand and consumer go through “ruts” and to “keep the spark” alive, innovation and news are essential ( Halloran, 2014 ). Research indicates that innovation plays a role in brand equity and it impacts brand identification or resonance ( Sinha, 2017 ).

Lack of brand familiarity or awareness, poor or negative user experience, a dearth of innovation and increased dissimilarities in values and lifestyles between brand and consumer can all weaken brand connection.

Trust and Brand Love

Trust is essential to brand attachment, intimacy, and commitment. It involves confidence and reliability, or dependability of the brand and it is influenced by brand image, familiarity, values, user experience, and quality. Indeed, brand trust directly influences brand love ( Turgut and Gultekin, 2015 ; Meisenzahl, 2017 ) and a strong relationship exists between brand love and brand trust and identification ( Albert and Merunka, 2013 ). Evidence suggests that brand familiarity influences brand trust ( Ha and Perks, 2005 ) and brand trust and experience, positively influence brand attachment ( Erciş et al., 2012 ; Chinomona, 2013 ; Chinomona and Maziriri, 2017 ).

Also, brand trust affects brand purchase, loyalty, and commitment. Evidence suggests that a strong relationship exists between brand love and brand trust, brand commitment, positive word of mouth, and willingness to pay a higher price for the brand ( Albert and Merunka, 2013 ). Research indicates that brand trust positively affects brand loyalty ( Setyawan and Kussudiyarsana, 2015 ), directly influences brand purchase intentions ( Yasin and Shamim, 2013 ) and positively influences current and future purchases ( Erciş et al., 2012 ). Indeed, more than any other factor, brand trust has been identified as essential for future purchases of a brand ( Esch et al., 2006 ). It is essential in determining purchase loyalty and attitudinal loyalty and it plays a role in brand market share ( Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001 ). Brand trust affects both affective and continuance commitment and affective commitment influences repurchase intention and loyalty ( Erciş et al., 2012 ).

Brand quality is essential to brand trust and love. Indeed, Fournier (1998) , discussed the role of brand quality in brand love and highlighted the role of trust in relationship satisfaction and strength ( Fournier, 1998 ). Also, brand trust has been found to positively affect resistance to negative information and repurchase intention ( Turgut and Gultekin, 2015 ).

Brand trust is weakened by poor user experience, brand quality, brand image, and a lack of brand familiarity.

Respect and Brand Love

Brand respect is essential in brand love and plays an important role in brand attachment, intimacy, and commitment. It is influenced by brand identification, values, image, experience, and quality. Brand respect is displayed by the customer in the form of high regard, admiration for the brand, brand loyalty and consideration or tolerance of negative information. Indeed, brand familiarity positively affects brand respect ( Zhou, 2017 ), indicating that brand familiarity increases regard for a brand. Evidence suggests that brand image positively influences brand respect and love ( Cho, 2011 ), indicating that brand image modulates a customer’s regard and admiration for a brand.

Brand respect influences brand commitment and loyalty. Indeed, a strong relationship has been found between brand respect and brand loyalty ( Cho, 2011 ) and brand admiration results in greater brand loyalty, stronger brand advocacy, and higher brand equity ( Park et al., 2016 ). Brand respect affects the behavioral outcomes of brand love such as affective commitment, and willingness to pay a price premium ( Garg et al., 2016 ; Park et al., 2016 ).

Also, evidence suggests that customers’ admiration or high regard for a brand contributes to why they tend to ignore negative information about the brand ( Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ). Fournier (1998) , included respect as one of the components of brand partner quality. This means that respect is one of the factors that reflects the consumer’s evaluation of the brand’s performance ( Fournier, 1998 ).

A lack of respect could negatively influence the relationship between a brand and a customer. Indeed, people react negatively when the expectation of respect is violated ( Hendrick et al., 2011 ) and a violation of expectation between brand and customer has been found to contribute to brand hate ( Zarantonello et al., 2016 ).

Brand love summary

Brand love involves the interactions and synergistic interplay between respect, connection, trust, and attraction. Any event that results in the loss of any of these factors could cause brand love to gradually decline and unless effort is made to replenish it, it will eventually fade or collapse. Brand love is dynamic and requires significant investment from the brand to keep it alive.

Strengths and Advances Made by the Quadruple Theory

The quadruple theory builds on many of the strengths of previous theories of love and it applies a temporal approach that has been proposed as the best way to understand love ( Berscheid, 2010 ). It goes further than previous theories for several reasons. Firstly, it could potentially be applied to any form of love although, only brand, romantic and parental love were discussed in this paper due to the paucity of scholarly articles on other forms of love. One of the reasons current love scales and approaches have been unable to be applied in all forms of love ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1989 ; Whitley, 1993 ; Sternberg, 1997 ; Masuda, 2003 ; Graham and Christiansen, 2009 ), is because they capture only a part of the ACC model, unlike the quadruple framework which fully captures it.

Unlike previous theories, the quadruple theory’s application of the complex factor of connection/resonance gives it an edge in furthering our understanding of love. Proximity, positive shared experience, familiarity, and similarity are vital to connection and connection has the most profound influence on all the other factors.

Also, the dynamism and variation of these factors provide a fresh way to understand love from its development to collapse. As Figure 1 shows, love tends to take time to mature in a relationship and can die as these factors rise and decline. Figure 1 shows that variations in the presence of these factors represent different levels of love. Love in any relationship is influenced by the events in the environment it is embedded, and it responds favorably or negatively to these changes. Indeed, people get sick, old, lose their finances, travel in search of greener pastures creating distance, develop new interests different from their partner’s and all these influences the presence and absence of love. One brand becomes more innovative, improves its product quality and users experience over another and people gradually love it more than the one they previously loved. In other words, love is very dynamic and may be divided into high, moderate and low. Another point highlighted in Figure 1 is that the absence of one factor represents the absence of love and only the presence of all factors represents the presence of love. Indeed, the decline of a factor can be replenished in response to changes in the environment causing the reestablishment of love. Trust could decline but attraction and respect remain and over time trust could be replenished.

This dynamic understanding of love implies that it can be nurtured and sustained. As an example, for a brand to be loved and to maintain that love, it must make products that are attractive (appealing). It must be able to connect to its target customers by reaching out through adverts to achieve familiarity and it must ensure that its values, goals, actions are consistently similar to those of its customer base. Also, it must ensure its services and products and actions promote and maintain trust with its customers. It must respect (value) its customer’s interests and ensure that its services and products continue to receive the admiration of its customers. Table 2 describes how brand love can be nurtured and preserved.

Table 2. Brand love can be nurtured and maintained.

Using this framework, a love scale or algorithm could be developed to ascertain the presence or absence of love in any relationship. Such a scale must effectively capture these four factors and must consider the type of love being calculated in its approach. As an example, in trying to create a scale for romantic love, sexual attraction, and activity may be important for attraction and connection (depending on the age of the partners) but would be unnecessary in the calculation of brand or parental love.

Major Challenges for the Theory

One of the biggest challenges the theory faces is the lack of psychometric data to prove many of its claims. Most of its arguments are based on decades of psychological data, but its lack of psychometric data weakens the theory significantly. Also, the entire premise of the theory is based on the ACC model, which has not been validated as essential or foundational to understanding love. Perhaps, something else needs to be added to the model that the theory may have missed. The argument that the quadruple theory captures the ACC model better than previous theories on love is an argument that has not been validated, and it remains to be seen if this is true. Also, the argument that it can be applied to all forms of love apart from the three discussed remains to be tested and verified.

Gaps currently exist in our understanding of love and evidences from the existing literature show that a framework that can be applied to all forms of love is needed. The quadruple theory hopes to be that framework. It is likely to broaden our understanding of the complex nature of love. It could make love less complex by making it something that can be cultivated or nurtured, regulated and preserved. Future research should consider the modulatory roles of peptides, neurotransmitters, and hormones on these factors and their influence on love as well as the integrated parts of the brain that modulates all these factors and how they work synergistically in different stages of love.

It is important to note that love is universal and applies to people of all cultures, races, ethnicities, religion and sexual orientations. Indeed, romantic love as described by the quadruple theory applies equally to heterosexual relationships and to the relationships of people in the LGTBQ community.

In conclusion, culture has a monumental influence on what people feel, think, and how they behave toward other people and things in their environment ( Karandashev, 2015 ; Ching Hei and David, 2018 ). So, it can be considered a modulating factor on the factors discussed and on love.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords : triangular theory of love, Romance, brand love, parental love, maternal love, Meaning of love, Definition of love, am I in love

Citation: Tobore TO (2020) Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Love: The Quadruple Theory. Front. Psychol. 11:862. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00862

Received: 20 September 2019; Accepted: 07 April 2020; Published: 19 May 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 Tobore. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Tobore Onojighofia Tobore, [email protected]

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A “Mythical” Tale of the Bermuda Triangle Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

The Bermuda triangle is a place found in the Western region of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is also known as the Devil’s triangle (Winer 54). In this place, it is believed that a great number of surface vessels mysteriously disappeared. The disappearance of the vessels following the mysterious circumstances has popularly been said to be the doing of extraterrestrial beings.

However, the belief in the occurrence of the paranormal incidents has been discredited by present-day critiques that see the creation of the incidence as the work of some late authors. Documented evidence further illustrates that the incidents were embellished or exaggeratively reported by the authors of the time (Berg 24). Many who discredit this embellished work state that the occurrences at the Bermuda triangle are an occurrence that is in every way similar to those that occur in any other areas of the oceans in the world.

The triangle, as it is, occupies the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas, the whole area of the Caribbean island and the Atlantic east of the Azores. In most authored pieces, the triangle is familiarly indicated to point some place on the Atlantic coast of Miami. Apart from Miami, the triangle also covers San Juan, Puerto, and Rico plus the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda. Most accidents have been reported to commonly occur along the southern boundary that borders the Bahamas and the Strait of Florida.

The Bermuda Triangle is one of the most frequently traveled shipping zones in the whole world. Many vessels pass through this area daily. The destinations of these vessels include America, Caribbean Island, and Europe. Various pleasure crafts move back and forth within the Bermuda region, and cruise ships make several voyages across it. This region is one of the most heavily crossed regions by transport vessels. Even private aircraft cross over the region frequently as they are headed for various regions of the world.

One research Librarian by the name Larry Kusche, who hails from the Arizona State University and is also the author of the book Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved, reported that majority of the authors (including Gaddis and the other subsequent ones) gave very dubious and unsupported details about the events that occurred in the initial incident (Quasar 75).

The statements given by these authors contradict what the eyewitnesses said about the incident. There were also major inconsistencies from what authors like Berlitz accounted and what the real eyewitnesses and the participants in the unfortunate incident reported.

Larry affirms that very vital information about the real occurrences was never reported. One such event is the disappearance of one Dutchman by the name Donald Crowhurst. Berlitz had presented the event as a mystery of the Bermuda triangle. This information is contradictory to what was later revealed through evidence.

Another similar and fake tale by Berlitz is that of an ore-carrier. Berlitz stated that the carrier had mysteriously disappeared in the Pacific Ocean, but in actual sense, the vessel had disappeared in a region in the Pacific Ocean that bore the same name. Larry also accurately reiterated that a number of the occurrences (that brought the unfounded allegations of the Bermuda Triangle’s mysterious involvement) had occurred outside the Bermuda region (Kusche 67).

Apart from Larry Kusche’s discredit of the incidences that could have occurred at Bermuda, there are several respondents who continue to voice their dissatisfaction with the fabrication of the story of the Bermuda triangle. There is nothing unique about the area.

A UK TV channel was airing the program dubbed ‘The Bermuda Triangle.’ John Simmons of Geofilms hosted it. One marine insurer was questioned on whether an abnormal count of ships had sunk in the Bermuda region. However, the company’s head of operations clarified that this was not true. To further clarify this, the US coast Guards went on to reaffirm this fact. The Guards even went on to state that the number of ships that sink in this area does not even measure up to the number of ships that get to cross this region daily.

There are various explanations to the cause of the incidences at the Bermuda triangle. An example is the one that states that the occurrences are caused by technological leftovers (Berlitz 75). A submerged formation of rocks, also known as the Biminis, is also interrelated to the explanations of the ‘Bermuda mystery.’ Others have gone to the extent of attributing the occurrences to the appearance of aliens and Unseen Flying objects (UFOs).

There are also natural explanations that try to unfold this unexplained mystery. Most incidents and accidents at the area are always attributed to compass problems. Many have also explained that numerous cases of magnetic abnormalities have been reported to be rampant in the area around the triangle.

A fact that is well agreed upon by most navigators is that magnetic anomalies are a usual occurrence and compasses do have a natural magnetic variation. Geographers state that the magnetic north compass and the geographic north , also known as the true north, are only similar in a few cases and places (David 46).

A good example is that as of the year 2000 in the US. Only those regions situated on a line passing through Wisconsin up to the Gulf of Mexico had the same readings on the compass and the same geographic north indications. However, the public is very minimally informed about this fact concerning ‘unexpected changes’ experienced across the Bermuda stretch.

Another explanation for the Bermuda mystery is the Gulf Stream. The stream is a river within an ocean. Just like any other river, it can carry any floating body. The gulf has a surface velocity of close to 2.5 meters per second. A relatively small body such as a small aircraft landing on the Gulf surface can be easily carried downstream by the strong currents in this region of the ocean.

Another very popular concept is human error. Most losses or accidents occurring in this area and leading to the loss of lives or vessels have been widely attributed to human error. Apart from human error, weather conditions are not completely under human control. Powerful storms such as the hurricanes are common features that are characteristic to the Bermuda Triangle. Such strong storms have led to the loss of lives and have done great fiscal damages. The waters around the Bermuda triangle are never involved in the hurricanes.

One discrediting fact to the entire mythical tale of Bermuda is that there are no recent cases of ship or aircraft disappearance. This makes people wonder whether the area ceased being mysterious.

Works Cited

Berg, Daniel. Bermuda Shipwrecks . East Rockaway: Aqua Explorers, 2004. Print.

Berlitz, Charles. The Bermuda Triangle . New York: Doubleday, 1974. Print.

David, Martin. The Evidence for the Bermuda Triangle . Welling borough: Aquarian Press, 1984. Print.

Kusche, Larry. The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved . Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1975. Print.

Quasar, Gian. Into the Bermuda Triangle: Pursuing the Truth behind the World’s Greatest Mystery . London: Ragged Mountain Press, 2003. Print.

Winer, Richard. The Devil’s Triangle. New York: Sage, 1974. Print.

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