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Kevin Suzuki 11/22/13 Wired Ensemble Beethoven Paper Beethoven Love Letter Paper: Theme and Motif Introductory Paragraph/Thesis: Within his letters, Beethoven attempts to act as omniscient as God regarding the love between him and his Immortal Beloved by constantly assuring her of his love and making assumptions about her feelings for him. However, by expressing his affection through the use of abstruse motifs and the theme of manipulating the truth, Beethoven ultimately shows his fear regarding the connection between him and his Immortal Beloved and constantly has to reassure himself of her love by making conclusions about his Immortal Beloveds feelings toward him. By showing this fear of losing his Immortal Beloved, Beethovens fantasy and wishful thinking leads him to falsify his relation with his Immortal Beloved by making it seem as though she could not live without him. Consequently, through this counterfeit relation with his Immortal Beloved, Beethoven further depicts his anxiety and longing for her, depicting him as more human than God. Body Paragraph 1: In his first letter, Beethoven introduces the mutual love between him and his Immortal Beloved by creating his first assumption: the fact that her life depends on his existence. Having been separated from his Immortal Beloved for an extended period of time, Beethoven writes letters to reassure his love for her and reassures her love for him. By writing about his Immortal Beloveds love for him, Beethoven seems omniscient and sagacious regarding his relation with her, but also shows his anxiety by having to comfort himself by making assumptions about his Immortal Beloved. Beethoven writes, Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks-can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are no wholly mine (IB letter, lines 4-6). Beethovens question implies the fact that the love between him and his Immortal Beloved is strong enough to endure most obstacles. Beethoven implies that the love is mutual between him and his Immortal Beloved because he wants to be confident enough to know that

she actually loves him and that his relation is not a one way relation. By assuming that his Immortal Beloved loves him, Beethoven actually reveals his vulnerability and his insecurity because he attempts to hide the truth: the fact that he is afraid of being rejected. By showing that he is insecure about himself, Beethoven slowly begins to show that he is human and degrades his own God-like omniscience. Body Paragraph 2: Beethovens next assumption comes in the form of an arrogant statement, although originally intended to display the magnitude of his love to his Immortal Beloved. Beethoven writes about how demanding love is and portrays himself as a victim of the love between them. He writes, Love demands everything and that very justly- thus it is to me with you, and to you with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I (IB letter, lines 9-12). Beethoven justifies that because love is overwhelmingly demanding in a justly manner, it forces them to both be honest and true to each other. Ironically, even though Beethoven states that they must be honest, Beethoven is not honest when he states that his Immortal Beloved is forgetful and does feel some pain when away from him because these are inferences that he makes based upon his own justification in his mind. By inferring that she does not remember that Beethoven must live for the both of them, Beethoven tries to garner sympathy from her, while also chiding her for being forgetful and inconsiderate of his pain. By showing this pain of his, Beethoven again strays away from his God-like omniscience, which he depicts by making blunt inferences about his Immortal Beloved based upon no prior justification. He also begins to represent himself as a martyr and attempts to further live in his own illusion by convincing himself that because he is suffering and carrying the burden for the both of them, she must love him back, even if she forget[s] so easily (IB Letter, line 10) that he is the only one suffering for the both of them. Thus in reality, Beethoven probably knows that his Immortal Beloved is not forgetful, but just does not feel the same love for Beethoven. However, Beethoven refuses to accept this fact and tries to sugarcoat this truth by creating a falsified justification of why she loves him back.

Body Paragraph 3: In his concluding statements in his first letter, Beethoven introduces a new concept about the sharing of thoughts. Beethoven writes about this because he attempts to be romantic, while also fueling his own desire and imagination. Beethoven writes, My heart is full of so many things to say to you ah- there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all- Cheer up- remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours (26-29). Beethoven is honest about himself, stating that he has many thoughts to share with her and wants her to understand his feelings so that she could reciprocate them. He even writes that speech itself renders useless because he has too much passion and love for his Immortal Beloved. He hopes that by being romantic, he can woo her and actually make his relation with her genuine and authentic. However, he again attempts to show his omniscience by telling his Immortal Beloved to cheer up and remain true, while being only his treasure, as he is only hers. He implies that she feels the same pain and loneliness and she needs cheering up because she cannot cope with it herself. However, this assumption comes from Beethovens fancy and tries to make her sadness a reality in order to justify their supposed mutual love. By having to constantly rationalize their assumed mutual love, Beethovens presumed God-like omniscience begins to deteriorate and further exhibits his pain and disquietness. Body Paragraph 4: In his second letter, Beethoven begins with an assumption that even though he has just written a letter less than twenty four hours ago, his Immortal Beloved is suffering because Beethoven himself is suffering and tries to justify that because they are mutually in love, his suffering has to translate to her suffering. He further implies that because she is supposedly distressed, he has to do something to end her suffering and pain, which he believes will persuade her to substantiate their mutual love. He writes, You are suffering, my dearest creatureonly now have I learned that letters must be posted very early in the morning on Mondays-Thursdays- the only days on which the post coach goes from here to K. You are suffering Ah, wherever I am, you are with me, I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you (IB letter, lines 33-38). Beethoven tries to show his

God-like sagacity by accepting that she is suffering (without prior justification) because he is suffering and wants to end her suffering because he loves her. Through the simple phrase, You are suffering (IB letter, line 36), Beethoven blames his Immortal Beloveds suffering on himself and reasons it to have come from the distance between him and her. By writing as though she will be saddened due to the fact that she will not receive any letters from him sooner, Beethoven tries to justify the fact that she is in love with him. Thus by assuming that he is the reason for her suffering, he again tries to depict himself as the martyr who must bear and end her suffering, while also bearing his own emotions and pain. He also writes that he will arrange it so she can stop her misery and pain by living with her. Once again, by pinning her suffering and pain on him, he is not only able to comfort his Immortal Beloved and receive her love, but is also able to manipulate her to pursue his own intentions, which is to live with her and end his own suffering. By using his Immortal Beloveds pain as an excuse, Beethoven shows a more human side that expresses his greed and his true intentions of healing his own pain and wounds from living distant from the woman he loves and desires. Body Paragraph 5: In his third letter, Beethoven concludes that his Immortal Beloved must become calm and the always love him and be faithful to him, regardless of any situation, just as she is presumed to be in the past and present. Although this third letter is merely written a day after his first letter, his tone and attitude in this letter have changed and sound more somber, sad and optimistic. This letter begins with another bold command: Be calm (IB letter, lines 65-66) because Beethoven himself tries to become more calm, after realizing that his unreality will come to an end as he becomes older and weaker. He writes, Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together- Be calm-love me- today- yesterday- what tearful longings for you-you-you-my life- my all- farewell- Oh continue to love me- never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved (IB Letter, lines 64-68). Beethoven tells his Immortal Beloved to be calm and takes a position of higher power than her by commanding her to do so because he understands that his health is not revitalizing to the point where he can live with her and take care of her. By telling his Immortal Beloved to calm down, Beethoven assumes that because he is becoming older and weaker, she is becoming sadder and believes

that her pain and suffering are both increasing. Again, Beethoven portrays him as the reason of her suffering and states that only by being calm can their purpose of living together can be achieved. Beethoven assumes that this purpose is a mutual purpose, even though it is purely his own dream and fantasy. He is honest when he writes that he has tearful longings (IB letter, line 66) for her and by admitting to the fact that he is sad because he is alone and away from her, Beethoven completely tears down his God-like persona. He shows his humanness by begging her to always love him. His final line; never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved (IB letter, line 68) is his final plea and request for her to never forget the one who truly loved her and kept faithful to her. This last line truly describes the relation that Beethoven had with his Immortal Beloved and proves that the mutual love between them was just a hoax because had their love been truly mutual, Beethoven would not have to write this last line, begging her to always love him and to never forget him. By telling his Immortal Beloved to be calm, Beethoven is merely reassuring himself to become calm and to accept the truth and face the harsh reality that he will never be with his one true love. Conclusion Paragraph: Until now, Beethoven had told his Immortal Beloved to do something or described her feelings without truly knowing them because he wanted to keep his own imagination alive. He portrayed himself with a God-like omniscience by making many suppositions about the feelings of his Immortal Beloved in order to reassure himself that she reciprocated the same feelings that Beethoven had toward her. In order to hide his human emotions, Beethoven had to represent himself as the bearer of the burden because by doing so, he could accuse his Immortal Beloved of having the same pain and suffering as himself, yet never reveal the truth himself. Consequently, Beethoven, who stated that love demands everything and that very justly (IB letter, lines 8-9), ultimately proves to be merely human because the only way that he could keep his delusion a reality and hide his anxiety was through manipulating the truth and lying to himself by creating a fictitious relation with the woman whom he loved dearly.

Theme

Motif

I used the recurring theme of manipulating the truth to show that Beethoven was indeed more human than God-like I used the recurring abstract motifs of loyalty, honesty, imaginations, mutual love and assumptions to formulate an argument which states that Beethoven has to assume a mutual love between himself and his Immortal Beloved within his own fantasy and be disloyal to himself in order to validate the existence of a mutual love between the two