The Value Of Love In John Steinbeck's Novelette

Driving down the highway around 2:00 a.m. seemed like the only way to get home to see his family by the morning, but in the blink of an eye he was no longer on his way to the house. As he lay dying in the back of the ambulance, someone made the phone call to his wife. In that thirty second phone call, her value of sleep was soon replaced by her unending love for her husband. One value was weakened and the other strengthened. Values are consistently changing and reorganizing. Just as the wife’s value of sleep and value of loved changed instantly, so do one’s values change due to the circumstances they are put in.
Sometimes one’s choices in a circumstance destroy their values. In the fiction Novelette by John Steinbeck, George's choice to murder Lennie destroyed his value of friendship. At the beginning of the novel, George’s friendship with Lennie stood
In the tragic play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare shows Romeo’s values changing throughout the play. At the beginning of the play Romeo’s value of love was reduced to simply wanting sex and beauty; but, through Juliet’s death, his value of love was strengthened to something he could not live without, and something he died for (Rom. 1.5.50-60, Rom. 5.3.115-120). At first, the very idea of his ex-lover choosing the life of chastity was so foreign to him that he could not bear to be with her; yet, when he grew closer and closer to Juliet his value of love was strengthened to the point that not only could he live without sex, he chose to not live at all (Rom. 1.1.215-220). No one commits suicide because of an infatuation reliant upon sex, but since Romeo fell completely and utterly in love with Juliet that was his only escape from the heartbreak she had caused. His value of love started off as a weak feeling, and ended up being the only value he could not live without; thus, proving that values can be strengthened through the circumstances one’s life