Teenagers don't need any additional reasons to be in bad relationships, and glamourising the worst by calling them 'epic' love stories is not what we need either.
Romeo and Juliet is a toxic relationship that ends in teen suicide. Wuthering Heights is incestuous and describes several signs of domestic abuse within a relationship. Jane Eyre belittles woman's place within any relationship and a multiple of other show rape as a display of affection.
I'm just curious as to who it is that thinks this is a good idea. Whilst teachers glamourise the 'true' love and 'unrequited' love plots of these novels, what the angst charged teens are hearing reinforced is the notion that no true love ends in happiness and if you really want someone to believe you love them you must be miserable without them, for no true love has a happy ending.
These novels are possibly responsible for the extremely low self worth often found in teens, the accelerated statistics on teen depression or the catalyst to the numerous abusive teen relationships that seems to have risen from nowhere. Being taught this and consequently labouring under the impression that it is good to feel like shit because then society will put a huge tick on the validity of what you have felt for another person, mate that's just wrong.
There has never been a truer statement than "we accept the love we think we deserve" and what we think we deserve is drilled into us by Victorian Novels and Shakespearean plays that end in tragedy.
What teenagers should be analysing is something empowering and true. Something like Sex and the city; 'I will not be the first one to speak. And if he never calls me again I will always think of him fondly, as an asshole.'
These characters, unlike the whiney Cathy's and Juliet's, are very aware of what is not love. They could teach everyone a thing or two. But above all they manage to remain firm believers in romance and thorough believers in love, true, overwhelming, stupid love...that ends in a happy ever after.
Great love stories aren't only those because they end in tragedy. And just because you can move on and smile again it doesn't mean you never loved anyone. It means you loved yourself enough to call it a day On the misery and search for the real thing. And that's what these classic novels fail to teach, leaving teens increasingly confused and often more miserable.
It's time we injected a little Carrie into our Curriculum; 'somewhere out there is another little freak who will love us and kiss our three heads and make it all better.'
No comments:
Post a Comment