Hagar

1) Fact: Hagar is Milkman's cousin and ex-girlfriend.
2) Hagar is torn between love and hate: although Hagar tries to bring herself to kill Milkman every month, she cannot bear to let go of him because he is the only feeling of home in her life.
3) Biblical allusions are very much present through the names of the characters in the novel. Hagar's character, much like the one in the Bible, was forgotten and abandoned by Milkman when he stopped loving her.
4) "Being five years older than [Milkman] was and his cousin as well did nothing to dim [Hagar's] passion. In fact her maturity and blood kinship converted her passion to fever, so it was more affliction than affection. It literally knocked her down at night, and raised her up in the morning, for when she dragged herself off to bed, having spent another day without his presence, her heart beat like a gloved fist against her ribs. And in the morning, long before she was fully awake, she felt a longing so bitter and tight it yanked her out of a sleep swept clean of dreams." (Morrison, 127)
5) Morrison uses Hagar to display the painful side of love and human desire and to show how her sense of complete dependence on Milkman, despite his ignorance of her feelings, drives her to confusion and madness. Her madness is the result of the totality of her love.
6) Something that is both confusing and interesting about Hagar is that the madness that comes from the absence of Milkman in her life leads her to try to kill him although she is completely in love with him. It's paradoxical because her painful love is what makes her try to kill him, but she could only possibly kill him if she hated him, but her feelings are the exact opposite.

Thoughts on Love

I don't, nor will I in the near future, know what true love really is. I definitely believe in true love; it's just that there are so many different takes on the definition of love, I can't possibly boil it all down to just one. Sure, I have ideas of love based on both common perceptions and my own experiences, but I cannot define exactly what it is. That doesn't mean I think it's impossible that I have ever been in love before; in fact, I currently have strong feelings for someone, and I think it could be love. Before I claim that I am in love, though, let me say that I don't usually use the "label" of love to accurately describe those kinds of feelings. To say that one is in love sounds so final, certain, and one-sided to me, and that's not what love is at all. I completely understand that it's just a word used to explain the unexplainable strong feelings of passionate emotion, and I'm all for that. Therefore, I accept it as a widespread socially-used word, but I don't usually use it because I try not to analyze human relationships because they have no technicalities. They aren't simply one or the other; they are complex, and I don't like to think of it that way because it seems to take away the wonder of being in love. If I'm always testing to see if I'm really, truly in love, I can't leave much time to enjoy it for what it is, can I?

That being said, I have my own concept of love. Love is a deep emotional connection you share with someone that cannot be broken easily; it is a strong spiritual, mental, and most often physical attachment to a person. Love is in no way shallow, because it must exist in spite of the person's flaws and imperfections. Because love is so complex, multi-layered, and hard to grasp in the context of the present, I believe the only way I will discover I have found true love will be in retrospect. One of these days I'll look back on the past, either recent or distant, follow my life up to the present, and say, "Wow, I am (was) in love," because I'll be able to piece all the "symptoms" of love together. I'm really trying my best not to sound like a textbook or an over-analyzer, but I kind of have to in order to shine some light on this sensitive subject. The truth is, I believe in letting things like love and relationships take its own course and not worrying constantly about what's expected or "normal" for a relationship. Seriously, relationships should not be that stressful if love is present and both people know it. True, I'm only 18, and I realize it probably gets a bit more complex than that as one reaches adulthood, but from what I've experienced, it's true.

Love is the greatest thing we as humans can possibly know, and I feel at most times that it is the most powerful driving force in my life. At the same time, though, one cannot possibly force love into his/her life. It will, as I said, take its own course and find its own natural way to you. As you can see, I am in no way doubting that love exists, I am simply asking if it's right to place the most pleasurable and intricate human emotion in a nutshell. That is my own personal take on this topic, and if I've contradicted myself in any way at throughout this blog, I blame it on my complete wonder and fascination of love.