Comparing Love In Never Let Me Go And Brokeback Mountain

“Never can the innate power of a work be hidden or locked away. A work of art can be forgotten by time; it can be forbidden and rejected but the elemental will always prevail over the ephemeral” (Zweig). Love is a force that cannot be measured, which is why it is such an amazing power and intrigues many people. Love has the ability to bring people together despite having impossible odds. There are many stories and poems written that praise the power of love, however people fail to recognize that love does not always conquer all. In Never Let Me Go, the relationship between the guardians and students is one of true love because the guardians were apprehensive toward the students, yet they wanted to do what was best for them by improving

However, humans behave in an irrational or rational, depending on a person’s perspective, and because of this they may fall victim to following societal norms over their emotions; which occurs in both Never Let Me Go and Brokeback Mountain. The pressure of society overwhelms the strength of love that is experienced in each relationship. Ennis cannot conquer his fear of what society will view of his and Jack’s relationship. He expresses this fear when he says, “What I’m sayin, Jack, I built a life up in them years…You and me can’t hardly be decent together if what happened back there grabs on us like that. We do that in the wrong place we’ll be dead. There’s no reins on this one. It scares the piss out a me” (Proulx 269). Ennis struggles to see a positive outcome of him and Ennis pursuing their relationship further. Ennis chose to create what society approved as the right way to live your life by finding a wife and having children. He let the excitement and joy of their relationship fade so that he could live the comfortable life without conflict. Ennis cannot rationalize the benefits of fighting for his heart over the comfortable nature of conforming to society. He ends up deciding to fight for his limitations rather than fight for his true emotions. The guardians in Never Let Me Go face a similar conflict regarding how they respond to the outside conflict towards the students. The institute of Hailsham was able express love towards the students even though society felt differently. This love was not able to hold up the weight that was eventually put against it. Miss Emily describes a series of events that caused them to crumble under this weight, “It reminded people, reminded them of a fear they’d always had…That frightened people. They recoiled from that” (Ishiguro 264). The guardians had poured their lives