Love and hate are powerful emotions that can influence and control our relationships with other people. Love and hate are so closely connected that it is possible to hate the one you love. Love can easily turn into hate as we begin to disagree with the person we love. Two works of literature, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” by Irwin Shaw are examples of how love and hate influence and control our relationships with other people.
In “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, the duke's relationship with his wife was influenced by love and hate. Throughout the poem the duke speaks of his wife as if he loves her. He began to feel jealousy because his wife would smile the same exact way as she would smile at him to other people. When he gave her a really expensive gift, she smiled. When other people gave her ordinary gifts, she smiled the same way. This drove the duke crazy. The duke began to think that she loves other men the same way she loves him. This influenced the duke to kill his wife.
In “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” by Irwin Shaw, a couples relationship is controlled by love and hate. Michael keeps looking at other women and his wife Frances hates that. They begin to argue. During the argument Frances states that even though her and Michael met because he looked at her the same way, she wants him to stop looking at other women like that. Late on after the argument, Frances walks away and Michael looks at her the same way he did when they first met.
In conclusion, love and hate are powerful emotions that can influence and control our relationships with other people. In “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, the duke was influenced by love and hate. In “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” by Irwin Shaw, the couples relationship was controlled by love and hate.