“What is Forbidden Love & How Does It Affect People?”
I. Opening
1. “This love is difficult, but it’s real.” That sums it up, forbidden love, it might
be difficult, but there is no doubt that it is real.
2. it’s a challenge
-can simultaneously make a relationship more desirous while tearing the
lovers apart
II. 1st Body (What makes love forbidden?)
1. family
-parents forbid either for self-interest or child’s best interest.
a.Love Story-“my daddy said stay away from Juliet”Romeo and Juliet
b. interview- Grammie’s dad was so strict, their relationship was forbidden
c. Like Water for Chocolate- Mama Elena against Tita and Pedro because
of the tradition, (self interest)
d. Film- dad won’t let Jamie and Landon date  saw it as sinful
-Jamie fought her father, like Grammie did. But now she sees why
he did so.
sub paragraph: death/disease
1. fate is often controlled by death and disease
a. Interview- stomach cancer & death
-their love seemed impossible, wanted to be together but had so
much working against them
b. Film- Jamie’s death & leukemia
-their love became difficult to maintain
2. unknown factor of death
a. Like Water- Mama Elena & Jose
-“eliminated from this world.” (138)
-grief
3. although the death and illness seem unfair, keeping them with you makes it
easier to bear
sub paragraph: values/morals
1. a difference in values and morals causes different beliefs which lead to conflict
a. Film- strong faith vs. leniency in faith
-leniency allowed a love to begin
b. “Meet the Ball and Chain”
-Anne was like Jamie, able to solely see the good  allowed her to
fall for an inmate
c. article  out of race, against morals and norm
-judgemental
-marriages cause them to be embarrassed for their children
-forbid the love
d. “Who Deserves What”
- princess and shepherd = different social standings
III. 2nd Body (Out of Our Hands?)
-a point comes in love can when the lovers can do nothing more than sit back and let
fate do what it is meant to
1. death
a. Film
b. Interview
-leaving a lover without their other half.  unfair
2. marriage to another
a. “The Betrothed”
-“I have found thee — but too late!” & “For to one my vows
were plighted.”
b. “Annabel Lee”
-“So that her highborn kinsman came / and bore her away
from me”
-cant do anything about that, but this means distance
3. distance
a. “Mucho Corazon”
-Leon is in Holland, immigration laws forbid Sosa from joining
him  time can only fix this
5. time
a. “Meet the Ball and Chain”
-waiting for sentence to be over so they can start their life
6. just have to let fate happen
a. Grammie’s quotes about leaving it up to fate
IV. 3rd Body (Pain of forbidden love/what it does to people)
1. waiting
a. Love Story
-waiting for acceptance
2. just doesn’t work
a. “Annabel Lee”  “but we loved with a love that was more than love”
- ache of not being able to be with the one he loves
3. Make you start to think it’s not real/won’t work
a. the torment of beginning to think that the love you have shared with
someone is not real or that it truly will not work.
b. Like Water for Chocolate
-“…An icy feeling of grief. She had to get rid of that terrible
sensation of cold…,” (19) = heartbreak
c. Short Story
-she was poisonous, how could it work
“gorgeousness seemed fierce, passionate, and even
unnatural, even unreal” = their love
5. John Greenleaf Whittier
-” The agony of not knowing what a love could hold for two people is the
worst of all, the pain of the unknown.
V. 4th Body (Overcoming)
1. Moving on from the loss of a forbidden love, due to whatever circumstance,
is painful, moving on from any love is painful, but at some point we all must do it.
2. keeping them with you
a. “Annabel Lee”- “For the moon never beams without bringing me
dreams / of the beautiful Annabel Lee…/…And so, all night-tide, I lie
down by the side / of my darling-my darling-my life.”
- dreams of her and it brings them back together, feels
as if he is laying down beside her
b. interview- Tom
-keeping her with him made everyday life without her easier
3. forgetting
a. “The Betrothed” “Thou hast known me – but forget me!”
4. time  heals all wounds
a. “Mucho Corazon”
-patience = one day they will be able to be together
b. “Black-White Marriages Rise, But Couples Face Scorn”
-give their families time to accept them
VI. 5th Body (Hope)
1. Hope for the best; hope that one day, maybe one day, they will be able to be
with the one they were forbid to be with.
2. never giving up
a. book- Tita and Pedro (p67)
b. Grammie - “whenever I saw his face that hope came rushing back and I
knew one day, one day we could be together.”
3. it will be ok
b. Love Story- “don’t be afraid we’ll make it out of this mess”
4. no hope, I mean it is forbidden love we’re talking about…
a. “The Betrothed”- “all Love’s own sweet prospects faded”
VII. Closing
1. what is forbidden love to me?
a. examples
2. questions I asked myself
a. who gets to decide?
b. why?