Five-minute love stories

A big part of the changing concept of relationships comes from how they are presented in fiction works. Popular stories help to determine the social norms of sex and love. The following short stories (and one poem) are must-reads this Valentine’s Day.
Though not all optimistic, they are exceptionally good peeks into older views of sex and love, as a more forbidden and obsessive abstraction, though it’s worth mentioning that all of them were ahead of their time in subject matter.
Poem: “Annabel Lee” (Edgar Allen Poe, 1849) 
This is the last poem written by Poe. While he is known for his dark themes, this poem is an unconventional piece on love.
The poem is about a lover that died many years ago. The two fell in love when they were children, and the young girl, Annabel Lee, drowned in the waves of the sea.
The speaker of the poem is not only distraught, but is greatly affected by this loss of his childhood love. He is traumatized for the rest of his life.
He is now a grown man, writing a tribute to the woman he loves. Not a moment passes, he writes, when he does not think of her or the way she died.
What draws me to this work more than many other love poems is how interesting it is in regards to the speaker.
The speaker creates Annabel as an obsession in his mind, yet is not aware that his feelings for his lost love are destructive and somewhat perverted. He continues to remain faithful and pledges his love to her.
It illustrates the madness created by love coming to an end and the destruction it has caused for the poem’s speaker.
Short Story: “Araby” (James Joyce, 1914) 
“Araby” is one of my favourite short stories. It is about coming of age and one’s first experience with love and infatuation.
The story is told by a presumably young, unnamed, narrator in Dublin, who partakes in the nightly ritual of meeting his friends after dinner and playing in the streets as the night becomes darker.
The narrator’s friend, Mangan, has a sister with whom the narrator becomes infatuated. As the boys play, the narrator describes how he always watches for her as she calls Mangan in for tea or stands on his doorstep.
The narrator becomes obsessed with Mangan’s sister, continuously watching her door in the hopes of seeing her and chasing after her.
One night, Mangan’s sister asks the narrator if he is going to Araby, a bazaar that has come to town.
She tells him she cannot go because of a religious commitment, but wants to buy something from the bazaar.
Immediately, the narrator tells her he will go and buy her something.
The story illustrates the excitement, eagerness, and irrationality that is universal to first feelings of infatuation.
What makes it so captivating is how a simple and childish start leads to such dark themes. It is a story of a child who becomes consumed by love.
He spends a long time thinking of the gift he will buy for the girl he thinks he loves. He is the happiest in these moments, imagining and fantasizing about something that has not yet happened.
His innocence is slowly lost. He stops playing with the other children, illustrating his growth into a character of determination. However, he is faced with life’s truths when he sees the bazaar was not what he had imagined, and he cannot buy anything special for his loved one.
The narrator learns a lesson about the contrast between infatuation and reality. The story does not romanticize first love, but instead, gives an honest, decidedly downbeat sense of realism.
Short Story: “The Princess and the Soldier” (Unknown Author, n.d: old oral tale) 
This short Italian story has been passed through years of oral tradition and is part of the fairytale genre, but ends with a much darker climax than many commonly known fables.
In this story, a king throws a feast and invites hundreds of princesses to his castle. A soldier guarding the kingdom sees the king’s daughter pass by, and falls madly in love with her at first sight.
The melodramatic, hopelessly romantic soldier tells the princess he cannot live without her.
The princess is enthralled by his strong feelings for her, and instead of running for the bushes, she tells the soldier that if he waits 100 days and 100 nights underneath her balcony, at the end of this time, she will be his.
The soldier immediately goes beneath her balcony and waits. The princess looks out her window and sees that the soldier has not moved. He stays there through the wind, rain, and snow. Many animals bite at him and insects sting him, but he remains in his position.
By the 90th night, the soldier has become very dried up and sick. He no longer has the strength to sleep, and doing anything is very painful for him. The princess continues to watch him, and on the 99th night, the soldier picks up his chair and walks away.
The story’s big question is why the soldier leaves when in one more night, the princess would have been his.
Like Joyce’s story, this is a tale about the illusion of love: had the soldier stayed, the princess may not have kept her word. By leaving, he allowed the 99 days to have been truth, as far as he’ll ever know.
Though missing a “happily ever after,” the story leaves the soldier satisfied with his fantasy of true love. It is a story of how these feelings of love and infatuation give a person strength and a longing that keeps them alive.
Short Story: “Hills Like White Elephants” (Ernest Hemingway, 1927) 
A man and a woman wait for a train to go to Madrid on a particularly hot and dry day.
The man in the story is referred to as “the American” and the woman’s name is Jig. Though the two are speaking about an unnamed operation in reference to the girl, the subtext of the dialogue and much of the symbolism in the scenery provide clues that the girl is pregnant and that the said procedure is an abortion.
The American holds up a facade that he is letting the woman decide what she wants to do about the operation in question, but at the same time, tries to persuade her to to it.
The girl is unsure of what she wants to do and wants to merely sit in silence, but the man pesters and continues to barrage her with questions until she finally convinces him to stop talking.
Most of the story is the dialogue of their conversation and through this, the reader grasps a realistic insight on their relationship and how they both feel about the problem at hand.
The story works around the topic of abortion through very subtle literary devices. I also love that it doesn’t hold an obvious stance, because the story is not written for that purpose.
It is a story about the heavy conflict this couple faces and how the two never come to a conclusion, even as the story does.
Olivia Loccisano
Contributor