Falling in love: A way to paradise or inferno

Paper instructions:
Develop a thesis that answers the following question: How do characters in Lasdun’s “love stories” reach the demonic state? Consider, the Faustian Bargain, settling, the dream of eternal adolescence, and the chimera for a comparison essay that includes at least 3 stories, “The Half Sister,” “The Natural Order,” and “Peter Khan’s Third Wife.” Be sure your essay is 1,200 words and includes a Works Cited page with a minimum of 2 sources.

the summary is for your convenient.

The next story “Natural Order” has a man on a trip through Europe writing a guidebook with an old friend that seems to be very effective with women. I found this amusing since I was on a train through the Alps to the border of Italy in Switzerland as I was reading it. The man in question believes his friend’s luck is simply because of confidence and attention to appearance. He tries his hand at seduction initially but always keeps thinking back to his wife and new daughter in Connecticut. When the possibility happens a second time, he seems to go through with it and wonders why he has. The woman leaves her name and number in lipstick. He has to throw it away. This is when it starts to hurt.

“The Half Sister” has a guitarist free spirit who never quite made his break teaching young kids music to make his ends meet. One of his clients is a rich couple who seem to have it all. After discussing and talking to him a bit, the couple invites him over for tea. He finds that their step daughter has come back home. She is not attractive but would make a good wife and they would be well taken care of with money. They try to set him up with her at the opera. He thinks that it might not be a bad life but he thinks he needs to turn it down. He would be stuck in the life without change. He wants his freedom but he wonders if it is the right choice. This bases down to the human equivilent of choice.

“Peter Kahn’s Third Wife” shows that the continuing selection of these stories is quite intrinsic. This story follows a girl with a customer that comes in every couple years. She models the jewelry for him and there is an ease of comfortability as he goes through his romantic life which always seems to fall apart. He comes in with no one with the exception of his third fiancee and even then the girl models a necklace for him. At a later dinner  some months later, the jewelry girl finds out that the man, who is a wine importer, left his fiancee at the altar. The jewelry girl meanwhile is in a relationship with a man who abuses her and whom she despises. She tells him that she is having an affair (even though she isn’t) and takes off to find the man from the jewelry store. It functions a little bit too much like a fable without any real world personification but hope seems like a rare commodity.