Poetry: Unchanging Love Essay, Research Paper

Love is a very powerful word. It is that feeling inside that warms every heart. It is what brings people closer together. It is what everyone is searching for. If this love is true, it will live on. William Shakespeare makes this very clear in his Sonnet 116. The physical body will decay, but as long as love is loyal and persevering, it will live on forever.

To better understand the theme of the poem, I am going to explain it bit by bit. The seamark in line five serves as a guide to passing ships; love serves as a guide to people who are lucky enough to be in it. “Love’s not time’s fool,” in line nine means that love is not fooled by time. Time will march on, things will change, but love stays the same. All of these principles tie into the theme that love is constant and unchanging.

Movies seem to portray this theme very well. In City of Angels, Nicholas Cage has to make a decision. He can choose to stay as a death angel, and live that way forever or he can choose to become mortal, but never be able to become a real angel after death. He makes the ultimate sacrifice for love. He chooses to become mortal so that he can be with Meg Ryan. Their love is so strong, that he is willing to do anything for her. That is what love is all about.

In the movie Ghost, Patrick Swayze is killed in a mugging. His girlfriend, crushed, does not know how she will be able to live without him. But because he loved her so much, he finds a way to contact her. He does this through Whoopi Goldberg. He wants her to know that even though he is not with her, he still loves her very deeply. This is a perfect example of unchanging love. This illustrates how love, if persevering, can live forever.

This universal theme seems to repeat itself through all of time. From Romeo and Juliet, the star-crossed lovers, to Tim and Jill on Home Improvement, it is proven that love lives on. It has been established throughout time that love, when strong, can conquer all.