¶ … Araby," by James Joyce, "The Aeneid," by Virgil, and "Candide," by Voltaire. Specifically, it will look at love as a common theme in literature, but more often than not, it does not live up to the romantic ideal of love. Various authors employ this emotion as a theme that allows them to demonstrate some truth about the human condition that lies outside of the terrain of love. ARABY"

The third story in Joyce's "The Dubliners" is "Araby." At first it seems simply a story of a young boy experiencing his first love. However, there is much more to the story. The boy reveals his feelings about the Church in the first paragraph, when he says the Christian Brothers' School "set the boys free." The girl he likes cannot go to the fair with him because she has a "retreat at her convent." These simple statements show the restrictions of the Church that apply even to the Catholic children, and how they affect their lives. What they do revolves around the Church. Even in the bazaar that is nearly closed for the night, he likens to a "...silence like that which pervades a church after a service" (Joyce 13). He cannot get away from the influence of the Church, no matter where he goes.

This is at first glance the first truly romantic story of the three. The young boy has his first adolescent crush, and it brings back memories of first love. It is a charming story until it contents with the Church, and with the young boy's own anguish at...

Joyce is chiding Catholics for allowing the Church to operate their lives here, and showing how easily manipulated people can be in the name of religion.
THE AENEID"

The story of Aeneas and Dido is tragic at best. Dido has sworn not to love again after her husband is murdered. However, Cupid visits her and spears her with his arrow, "Th' unhappy queen with talk prolong'd the night, / And drank large draughts of love with vast delight" (Virgil I). She is almost mad with her love for Aeneas, so mad that she allows her love finally to consume her. When she cannot have Aeneas, because he decides to leave her homeland, Carthage, she kills herself on a funeral pyre filled with mementos of Aeneas. She realizes she has compromised her future as a ruler, and ends her life. What a waste of a strong and viable woman; lost in uncontrollable love for a man who had other ambitions.

Dido's love for Aeneas destroyed her as a ruler. Her people saw her lose her dignity as she openly obsesses over Aeneas and ignores her responsibilities. "Further, by dallying with another foreigner, Dido alienates the local African chieftains who had approached her as suitors and now pose a military threat" (Gardner). She has ruined her rule, for a man.…