Jordan Hayes

Yeaton

English 10 Pre-AP Period 3

2 May, 2018

Argument Essay Final Draft

Oscar Wilde once said, “Hearts live by being wounded”. When heartbreak, or anything

sad in general, occurs, we tend to be much more aware of our emotions and hearts. The change

of pace in a heartbeat is the reason behind why the heart is metaphorically related to emotions. A

heartbeat changes pace when our emotions change, and since sadness and anger tend to make a

great impact on the heartbeat, they bring the heart to life. Oscar Wilde referred to the negative

side of a heart being powered by emotion. However, hearts are brought to life when one is

happy, excited, in love, or experiencing other positive emotions, too. Therefore, although

wounds do have the ability to bring a heart to life negatively, a heart can also be brought to life

positively.

When sadness or other negative emotions strike, they affect the heart, creating a sense of

aching or emptiness. In 1844, Charlotte Bronte wrote a letter to her professor, Constantin Heger,

saying, “I wish I would write more cheerful letters … do not be irritated at my sadness … I find

it difficult to be cheerful so long as I think I shall never see you more”. Charlotte Bronte’s heart

lived through Constantin Heger’s silence by experiencing rejection and heartbreak. She later on

revealed these emotions in a collection of essays called Jane Eyre and Villette. Heartbreak plays

a big role in depression and within the saying, “ Hearts live by being wounded”. However,

anxiety can be linked to depression, too. Social anxiety is a very common anxiety disorder

among society. According the Social Anxiety Institute, it prevents people from surrounding
 Hayes 1

themselves with friends and family, finding a significant other, feeling wanted or as if they

belong, pursuing a career, and so many other things. This affects the heart by making it feel

unwanted and living through the feeling of insecurity.

Sometimes emotions have the ability to make us so vulnerable that the heart has the

ability to physically experience the occurrence of painful emotions. Mary Pritchard, writer for

the Huffington Post, dealt with heartbreak. She revealed in her article, Lessons Learned From a

Broken Heart, that after her divorce, she began to experience chest pains. She visited a

cardiologist and received no bad results in correlation to her heart. The pains were caused by the

stress from the heartbreak she was dealing with. Pritchard’s heart felt, or lived, the deep sadness

she felt in response to her divorce. Her heartbreak related chest pains are not uncommon. In fact,

some people have died from becoming so emotionally vulnerable due to emotional trauma.

According to psychologist Suzanne Degges-White, the left ventricle of a heart can stretch out to

form a narrow neck-shaped section. This occurrence is referred to as takotsubo cardiomyopathy,

or broken heart syndrome. It takes place in response to the stress hormones created by the body

in response to emotional trauma. Therefore, a heart has the capability to “live” by causing the

person literal pain in response to their deep emotional pain.

Positive emotions can power a heart the same way negative emotions can. However, the

results of a heart living due to positivity obviously have good results. Amanda Seigler, an author,

wrote a poem called, Your Love Saved My Life. The poem describes her previous state before this

person came into her life, fixing her hurt and giving her a reason to live. The lines, “I was

breaking, heart was aching, but you came just in time, your love saved my life” show that before

this person became involved with her, she was very depressed, but their love helped her

overcome this depression, causing her heart to live by being loved. Christina Rossetti’s poem, A
 Hayes 2

Birthday, is that of a similar topic. However, the poem is not about recovering through love,

rather it is about a new beginning that has been birthed through a new love. In the first stanza,

Rossetti compares the happiness in her heart to a singing bird, an apple tree ripe with fruit, and a

rainbow shell in a peaceful sea. She concludes the stanza by announcing that her heart is

“gladder than all these because [her] love [has] come to [her]”. The second stanza shifts from

how she feels to what she desires to be done in response to the new found fulfilment. In a way,

the desires are quite similar to that of preparation for someone of royalty. Therefore, she is

comparing her beloved to a royal person and saying that they must be treated as one. So, not only

is Rossetti’s heart living, but her lover’s heart is, too, due to the high level of respect she treats

them with and her abundant amount of love for them. Rossetti ends the poem by stating,

“Because the birthday of my life is come, my love is come to me”. She is concluding that this

love is a new beginning by comparing it to a birthday. Thus, Rossetti’s heart was brought to life

with love, happiness, and fulfilment in A Birthday.

Hearts can be brought to life through wounds and negative emotions, but they can also be

brought to life through happiness and love. Thus, a heart is not limited to expressing emotion, or

living, by being wounded.

 Hayes 3

Works Cited

Macdonald, Fiona. “Culture - What History's Love Letters Reveal.” BBC, BBC, 30 Nov. 2016,

www.bbc.com/culture/story/20161130-a-history-of-britain-through-heartbreak-and-lust.

Degges-White, Suzanne. “Dying of a Broken Heart?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 27

Oct. 2017, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifetime-connections/201710/dying-

broken-heart.

Pritchard, Mary. “Lessons Learned From a Broken Heart.” The Huffington Post,

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Dec. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-pritchard/lessons-

learned-from-a-broken-heart_b_6632424.html.

Richards, Thomas. “Top 10 List of Reasons Social Anxiety Causes Depression.” The Social

Anxiety Institute, socialanxietyinstitute.com, N.d., www.socialanxietyinstitute.org/top-

10-list-reasons-social-anxiety-causes-depression.

Literature, Interesting, and Christina Rossetti. “A Short Analysis of Christina Rossetti's 'A

Birthday'.” Interesting Literature, 1 Feb. 2018,

www.interestingliterature.com/2016/11/29/a-short-analysis-of-christina-rossettis-a-

birthday/.

Seigler, Amanda. “Your Love Saved My Life.” All Poetry, Amanda Seigler,

www.allpoetry.com/poem/9606641-Your-Love-saved-my-life-by-Jinx-.