Love, obsession, pride, and the parts of ourselves we try to ignore.
The more and more I read classic literature, the less and less I believe that people are just simple. These stories don't separate all the characters between heroes and villains, but rather, they just let them exist as they are in all their contradictions. All the traits that we all account for live in many of the same people. While reading classics, I've come to realize none of the authors are trying to make them "likeable", rather honest. For example, in "Wuthering Heights," Emily Brontë does not try to make Heathcliff nice in any way, shape, or form, but she makes him real. And this shows how love is not always pure like we assume it to be. Just like in "Wuthering Heights," the "love" is anything but pure. Oftentimes, the most intense love stories are the most damaging to readers, illuminating the truth to readers to make them more uncomfortable. The environment during these times is supposed to shape behavior and shape the trauma these characters endure. Classics don't excuse bad behavior; the authors just explain it. My idea is that many conflicts aren't started from hatred, but rather from the fear of illuminating honesty within ourselves. And this just shows how people can be loving and harmful, which makes my claim of people not being simple. Harm does not always have to have malicious intent, because most of the time it comes from emotions that were unresolved. Overall, classics didn't teach me that people are cruel or nice. They taught me that people are complicated, that everyone has struggles, and that everyone has a thing deep down that has unresolved. And in all these complications, we find how the truth of human nature shows through classics during that time and current.
