Love as a Destructive Force

Abstract

Our article examines the destructive force of love in world literature classics through Niklas Luhmann's sociological perspective, explored in his book Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy (1982). According to Luhmann, establishing connections and shaping or reshaping social systems relies significantly on the communication code of love rather than the commonly assumed factor of sincere feelings. To illustrate this concept, we analyze contemporary representations of the myth of the Argonauts and the story of Tristan and Isolde, in two novels by American and Georgian writers: John Updike's Brazil (1994) and Otar Chiladze's A Man Was Going Down the Road (1973). These texts were selected for their reimagining of classic love-centered narratives.

The textual examples of the Argonauts demonstrate how powerful the force of love can be: Medea's decision to embrace her passion for Jason leads to the dethroning of the king. In the second novel, while the apparent societal disruption brought about by love may seem insignificant—an upper-class daughter forming a family with a poor young man—the text displays that the activation of the love code becomes the basis for gender, racial, and social equality gradually eroding the established social order.