Love: Annotated Bibliography

Love could always lead to various outcomes. I feel like Rokujō is the most affectionate woman in the tale. She loves Genji with her truest heart, but Genji is very fickle in love, and his capriciousness makes Rokujō’s love turns into hate involuntarily. Rokujō is supposed to have a splendor life and live without any worries. She is intelligent and brilliant, and she is supposed to be the future Empress. However, everything has been changed after her husband died, and her affair with Genji turns her life into misery and tragedy.

She did not accept Genji’s love at the beginning, but everything has changed after she realized that she is actually love. Rokujō has been tormented by Genji’s neglect and indifference. “She herself, who suffered excessively from melancholy...and she spent many a bitter night, when he failed to come, despairing over her troubles.” (Shikibu, 60) Genji’s behavior makes Rokujō depressed, and the affair between Genji and Yugaō makes her feeling jealous. Her jealousy and possessiveness eventually make her own spirit possesses, and the spirit kills Yugaō and Aoi.
Rokujō’s jealousy is an outcome of her love towards Genji, and the jealousy destroys her soul ultimately. All the ladies in the tale are forbearing besides Rokujō, since she “fights” for Genji’s love. She seems to be the one who loves Genji the most among all ladies, but she is also the most deplorable character in the tale. She loves Genji to the depths of her heart, and the abhorrence emerges from the deepest of her soul. From her story, I feel like love not only could create happiness, but also could turn into