“I had killed the bird that made the breeze to blow.”
Usually I say that guilt is a useless emotion, but it propels Shelley's work and to some degree Coleridge's poem
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Although he addicted to opium at the time- the poem still holds us hostage by the surreal quality of redemption/sin coupled with the death of the albatros and the beauty and terror of the sea snakes -to say nothing of the drowsy and dehydrated sailors. We somehow can all relate. Why do we purposefully kill? Is it linked to desire? Mary Shelley lost most of her children, but wrote about death with objectivity and empathy. Can the heart bear anything?
What do we say of love- that it will save us from our own small destruction? that it redeem us? it is natural, but at the same time unfathomable.
Usually I say that guilt is a useless emotion, but it propels Shelley's work and to some degree Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Although he addicted to opium at the time- the poem still holds us hostage by the surreal quality of redemption/sin coupled with the death of the albatros and the beauty and terror of the sea snakes -to say nothing of the drowsy and dehydrated sailors. We somehow can all relate. Why do we purposefully kill? Is it linked to desire? Mary Shelley lost most of her children, but wrote about death with objectivity and empathy. Can the heart bear anything? 
Guilt is a great emotion, without it we would not care about what we do and how it affects the people around us. Also if you say that caring is some form of love, you can argue that without guilt we can not love others.
ReplyDeleteThat actually reminds me of the most interesting thing that I learned while reading The Psychopath Test. Psychopaths or sociopaths do not feel emotions for the most part. They become masters at mimicking them but they do not connect emotionally with anything and that is one of the big reasons they can commit such heinous acts. I think guilt, remorse, love and a conscious are what allow us to live in a society together without total chaos breaking out... but that's just my opinion.
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