Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Eros, Philia, Agape

I just finished reading this story and I have to say that it is my favorite one from Strahan so far. Many of the other stories are more far-fetched in terms of how the future/alternate world may be different from our own, but I found "Eros, Philia, Agape" to be the most believable. How far are we really from having robots of this intelligence that are so like humans? It seems to me that we are a mere few years away from a world similar to the one that Swirsky has written about.

I also found the story to be beautifully written. I liked that Swirsky switched point of view between Adriana and Lucian, because it made the relationship between the characters so much easier to understand. It was easy for me to feel Adriana's pain, yet it was also easy for me to see why Lucian had to go.

I also love the use of the title. All three words "Eros, Philia, Agape" are all Greek words for love. I took a psychology-tastic quiz one time that determined what kind of lover you were (fun times in my public speaking class actually)

eros= Sexual, erotic love, romantic love
philia= love as friends
agape= self-sacrificing love

I think it's interesting the the author explores all three types of love throughout the story.

What kind of love do you think that each of the characters felt for one another?

3 comments:

Jenny Strack said...

I love that you defined the greek words! Having them side by side like that really emphasizes how each type plays a role. To me, it seemed like Adriana's relationship toward Lucian was centered around Eros; Lucian's relationship toward Adriana was more about the philia aspect; Lucian's relationship toward Rose was very much centered around agape. I don't know that I would use any of these to describe the relation ship Rose has with Lucian, and I'm just going to say the relationship between Rose and Adriana is not very love-oriented.

Anonymous said...

I thought it was interesting how she played around with language in the story, too. In English, we usually have to supply a context to describe what kind of love we mean, but that isn't necessary in Greek.

Jordan said...

I agree with Jenny, and I also loved the use of the different types of love used throughout the story. I think it adds another layer of depth to the ideas of love we've already discussed on the blog and in class.

The fact that this story emphasized the love of humans for non-human things could be construed as a metaphor for how much people these days rely on material object, especially technology, to get on with their daily lives. When Lucian left Ariana was devastated/outraged and Rose was lost/confused. I think many people today would feel the same ways if, say, cell phones were suddenly banned by the government or something.