In the essay “The Brain in Love”, Benedict Carey argues that romantic attraction is a human biological drive. He supports his argument by using and explaining different studies of scientists. Brain activity, surveys, and behavior play a significant role in understanding romantic attraction in the scientific field. Pictures from the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed “activated pockets of the brain with a high concentration of receptors for dopamine, the chemical messenger closely tied to states of euphoria, craving, and addiction” when the person subject to the test thought of their beloved (401). This implies that people feel hyperactive when looking at the loved one and try to get attention by wearing or doing something different they wouldn’t usually do. University of Minnesota researcher Ellen Berscheid asked young men and women to make a list and divide the people they knew into four categories: friends, people they loved, found sexually attractive, and with who they were “in love” (401). The study showed that the loved one showed in all four categories and how it made the loved one unique like he/she had something special. This means that we look for someone that can be a friend, a boy/girlfriend, and a spouse at the same time because that person will be someone who can be all of them since we will spend most of our time together. Lastly, a psychologist at the University of Texas in Austin showed how love and romantic attraction affected a relationship’s duration. The study “identified three paths through early courtship: fast and passionate, slow and rocky, and in-between.” (402). The result showed that the slow and rocky courtship would result in a long last relationship because people took the time to know each other and understand whether a possible marriage would work. Also, fast and passionate relationships hide many differences between two people that can disintegrate a possible future together. Therefore, the information presented helps realize that love is a complicated network and implies that it can be affected by many factors, such as appearance, society, and mentality.
The many pieces of information gathered during our love and & society of 19th century Russian Literature are similar to the ones presented by Benedict Carey. Ancient Greek view helped understand how people differentiate the type of love they feel for someone, and the history of love helped understand how romantic attraction affects the body. These ideas are shown in the essay with the analysis of scientific results. In fact, the brain scan of romantic love showed a particular pattern: many strong and different emotions showed up all at once (Bartels and Zeki, 401). These results help get a greater understanding of the body responds to love. When seeing someone we fell for, we feel euphoric and hopeful that that person will notice us. However, where that doesn’t happen, frustration, anger, and stress will result in sickness, that can be identified as lovesickness.
The many factors that affect romantic love are only well illustrated in the literature of 19th century Russia, where society plays a massive role in how feelings are expressed. During that time, Russia had a patriarchal society in which women were subservient to men, dignity and decorum were highly critical. This type of organization was shown at different times in all the literary texts read so far. One good example is the ball. In these social events, women, married or not, couldn’t show a preference for one gentleman, and they couldn’t leave the event alone, but with someone they knew: “I went up to the drunk…asked him to go away, because, I added, the princess had long ago promised to dance the mazurka with me.” (“May 22.” A Hero of Our Time, by M. I. U. Lermontov et al., Everyman’s Library, 1992, pp. 107–111). This evidence demonstrates how women could not walk away from awkward situations without being ‘saved’ by someone close to them. This helps understand how decorum and dignity oppress women’s feelings and puts checks on their behavior. Moreover, the ‘control’ that men had on women. On the other side, men could act more freely, but their intentions could have been misunderstood and be challenged to a duel. One example is the duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky over the dispute of Princess Mary, after both of them tried to seduce her, but only Pechorin was able to the intent and Grushnitsky couldn’t accept it. However, in this society, like any other one, decorum was challenging to maintain when the beloved one was in front of them. “The mutual embarrassment” could be escaped only “by a sudden and decisive declaration of love” (The blizzard, 29), since love comes with a roller coaster of emotions, the only way to be able to control these emotions was confess to their loved one. Moreover, many characters idealized their loved one, and it resulted in being crucial to creating a healthy relationship, as stated by the researcher Pamela Regan at Cal State LA (402). But for many of the characters presented in the texts didn’t go like that: a sequence of unfortunate events made sure that they lost each other and, consequently, their feelings for each other.
In conclusion, most of the ideas presented by Carey in the essay are similar to those shown in our course, and both of them give more detailed information about romantic love. Also, they provide the opportunity to understand love in both the scientific and the social field by suggesting the factors that affect feelings. In fact, each of us has an ideal type and expresses what we look for a possible suitor. Lastly, our experiences and conception of love may give ulterior clues about how romantic love is perceived.
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