Love: Fiction or Non-Fiction?

Since the first occurrence of art, many people have desired a love like the ones in movies, plays, or books. Fiction and love have always been related. Many people assume that love affects fiction, but very few are aware of the fact that fictional works are responsible for most of our perception of love because "[...] fiction may even depart from truth in the things it talks about, which typically include nonexistent individuals and even members of nonexistent kinds [...]" (Kroon and Voltolini), which means that fiction creates its reality and, just as every society accepts the existence of another and gets influenced by it, non-fictional reality and truth are affected by the fictional reality a narrative suggests. When a person falls in love, he or she expects a relationship like Romeo and Juliet's, thanks to the great touch of Shakespeare on the issue of love. The type of love presented in the play that is strong enough to drive you to commit suicide for the beloved is still something modern humanity seeks, and so little of it has been acquired, as evidenced by many modern adaptations of the play and new works based on the same concept. In a rational sense, giving up their lives for their loved ones is against human nature because of the survival instinct every living being has; however, it is something people are still searching for. This situation has arisen as a result of art. Humans want their partners to love them to death because art presents it as achievable for the audience. Seeing it as something possible in a work of art that has an immense effect on human perception causes humans to set it as a goal in their love lives. It is known that to maintain his or her life, one needs something to accomplish in every field possible, and the literary and artistic works containing love as a theme create the expected goal in the field of love and relationships. Thus, it can be stated that societies’ perception of love is affected by fiction, and it changes and takes shape depending on it.

As it was mentioned previously, fiction is a new reality created by an artist, and what it conveys is true in its context, which gradually affects non-fictional reality. "Just as children use tree stumps as props in a game of make-believe in which the stumps count as bears, so a community of readers can use a text as a prop in a game of make-believe in which the text is treated as a record of events, situations, conversations, etc." (Kroon and Voltolini). That is, whatever happens, and how it happens in a fictional text is accepted as true by the reader, and the knowledge of its non-existence gets ignored, resulting in an emotional response towards the text one reads (regardless of whether it is visual, written, or verbal); it can cause changes in one’s life, mindset, and emotional state because of the effects created by them. To understand better how this is related to the relationship between fiction and love, one needs to analyze the power fiction holds over humans. Fiction shapes reality, society, and culture through its discourse. To create that discourse, it needs language. Language, in any form, is the ultimate tool for humans to communicate. Throughout history, new languages were born or made to serve different purposes, and all of these have contributed to the development of humanity. For example, after Latin died as a colloquial language, it benefited scientists in the field of medicine and other rational sciences, thus providing solutions for many diseases. So, it will be appropriate to state that "language is the work of logos" (Quincy 105). Because logos and culture are inextricably linked, it is impossible for them not to influence one another. As much as culture influences language, language has its power over culture. All the literary concepts used by the artists cause new meanings and new understandings to ensue. Sartre dictates: "It is true that one might, by convention, confer the value of signs upon them. Thus, we talk of the language of flowers. But if, after the agreement, white roses signify ‘fidelity’ to me, the fact is that I have stopped seeing them as roses" (8). Once it is written as a signifier of something, an object starts to be perceived differently. In Sartre’s example, a white rose becomes more than a type of flower because the concept of "fidelity" is attributed to it. So, it turns into a symbol in people's minds, and an object that belongs to nature gains a place in culture thanks to the interplay between language, culture, and fiction.

As something belonging to nature, love, as well, can be adapted to culture through language, which is the ultimate tool of fiction. Love has two sides to it. On the one hand, it exists as a feeling, and on the other, it is an action. Paul Gregory explains this in his essay "The Two Sides of Love" in more detail:

We seek in love a sense of meaning, and this, at any rate, must be some sort of emotional well-being. But it is not clear that we can decide for ourselves what we will feel or even feel. It is, it seems, no more possible to seek feeling alone than it is to seek pleasure alone. We can only pursue the things which – normally – please us. And where the feeling is sought directly the issue is likely to be sentimentality.

Thus if our concern is how we may come to feel love, the best approach seems to be to equate love with an action of a certain sort and leave the feeling to look after itself. (229)

This means that love comes naturally as an emotion, and we have no control over it. To achieve it as a satisfying sentiment, however, the actions we attribute to it will be the helper. According to this logic, to acquire the desired type of love, like romantic love, one needs to practice the acts of love. These acts are determined through experience and enhanced through fictional representations. While chasing these acts, one chases the emotion, which is the object of desire. Moreover, "[e]motions not only anchor us in the present but also tie us to the past and project our desires and interests into the future" (Davies 270). Fiction creates a desire for a likely non-existent type of love, and this shapes the perception of love, thus affecting the form that love will take in the future. For instance, the movie Only Lovers Left Alive presents a passionate love between two immortal lovers, leading the audience to wish for that type of love. The passion that persists between two immortal creatures and the love they have that does not cease to be an object of desire build the concept of "immortality of love"; however, as science suggests, the romantic love between two people can last approximately 2 or 3 years. Yet still, people expect everlasting love in their lives and try to fit into the concept. All of these cause the concept of love to be reshaped in the consciousness of society.

Upon hearing the arguments made up to this point, some may suggest that fiction is the one that is dominantly affected by love, which is a part of human nature; nevertheless, the power fiction holds is too great to come to that conclusion. An example given in the text "Fiction," written by Kroon and Voltolini, to explain fiction, goes as follows:

A first attempt might focus on the background of the fact that is available to readers of the work: given that London is the capital of Great Britain, the fact that the Holmes stories say that Holmes lived in London suggests that it is also true in the Holmes stories that Holmes lived in the capital of Great Britain.

This quote suggests that the basis of the fictional truth in the given example is the fact that London exists as the capital of Great Britain, but Holmes does not exist in the non-fictional world. The altered version of the truth, which states that Holmes is a part of the London population, becomes acceptable as the reader engages with the story, and the statement takes its place in people's minds as a fact. In a more abstract context, "love" can be accepted as a crude fact that exists in human nature, and yet, when it collides with a fictional world, characters, discourse, the artist’s perception, and the ideals set by them all, it changes form and gets acknowledged the way it is dictated and interpreted. Thus, fiction simply creates a new reality of love.

In this detailed discussion on the relationship between love and fiction, it was suggested that, because of the power of fiction on the consciousness of the human race, people’s perceptions of love and their actions depending on them get severely affected. Even though love naturally exists in our lives, its reflection on our actions, goals, cultures, and desires is determined by what fictional works present us with. Artists can shift and twist the elements belonging to non-fictional reality to fit into their narratives, constituting a new reality that gains a place as a fact in the non-fictional world. The twisted elements we are fed assist us in establishing new objects of desire to pursue, giving us a purpose and thrill in life. So, the natural existence of love takes different forms in cultural actions as a result of fictional representations and reflections.