Fashioning romantic love also known as fashioned love is love established by merging your imagination with real life relationships. Although fashioned love is a common theme brought up in 19^th century Russian literature the term is still used today. Societal norms put this pressure on individuals making them think that relationships need to be perfect. With the technological advancements today it gives us more access to various types of media that influences our perspective on romantic relationships. Books, movies, songs, and social media all play a part in fashioning our perception of love into something that’s unattainable. Russian literature tends to use fashioned love as a common theme when creating romantic relationships, having characters unable to recognize the difference between dreams and reality. In Nikolai Gogol’s “Nevsky Prospect” he tells the story of Piskarev a man who falls in love with the physicality of a prostitute and makes up a personality for her in his head. His infatuation with her grew into an obsession blurring the lines between dreams and reality. After seeking her out in real life she turns out to be far from what he imagined also rejects him, unable to come to terms with her refusal he kills himself. Piskarev’s love is not genuine instead he manifested his idea of the perfect woman onto someone he only met once. Gogol portrays fashioned love negatively, showing that when people fashion their love they can end up being hurt. He helped create the argument that society should stop holding unrealistic expectations towards a person because it will lead to a failed relationship. This a common issue within society that occurs frequently, making a compelling argument that people do tend to compare their relationships to what they see in the mass media continuously, sometimes without knowing. Fashioned love is a huge matter and with more exposure to multiple media platforms many people will fashion their love, however not everyone is like this and know how to separate reality from fantasy.

Although we don’t use it as a common phrase fashioned love is something a lot of people do when they’re in relationships. Comparing the idea that love should be like how it’s portrayed in the media, a happily ever after and getting swept off our feet. We indulge in this common phenomenon expecting too much then realizing we don’t take the time to develop a relationship that starts from the ground up. Then Fabricating this idea of what another person is like, how they act, and your interpretation of their personality. Anything influential can affect our mindsets. Gogol stands by the notion that fashioned love is damaging to oneself because of the way he plays out Nevsky Prospect. Piskarev has the mindset of a standard Russian man which is that a woman should have this innocence and submit to her suitor. Beauty also plays a part when a man is choosing a partner, when Piskarev first meets the prostitute the night he’s walking home her beauty entranced him. Immediately he assumes she lacks intelligence but continues to follows her because of her beauty. Instead of forgetting her after he ran out of her house he just puts a preferred personality to her face. Taken from the story he says “Of all his dreams, one that was most joyful for him: he imagined his studio, he was so happy, he sat holding the palette with such pleasure! And she was right there. She was his wife now. She sat beside him, her lovely elbow resting on the back of his chair, and looked at his work” (Gogol 264). In his dream he put her up on a pedestal making her his muse for his art work, imagining the life they could have together but when he wakes up she’s not there. Typically, people paint a subject that catches their eye and to Piskarev she was so beautiful that he could stay dreaming forever, she had the looks and the charm. Prior to this dream he becomes so desperate to see her that he goes to the Persian shop keeper to get opium to help him sleep more, saying “he heard that there was a means of restoring sleep-one only had to take opium” (Gogol 262). Opium is a drug that knocks you out and drugs can become addicting. To make matter worse he lied in order to get the drugs by saying he has insomnia, automatically that’s a red flag showing that he was letting this “love” start to consume his life. By adding drugs into the mix it enhanced his dreams clouding his mind even more. Similarly, another author named Fyodor Dostoevsky expresses the same opinion as Gogol towards fashioned love in his story “White Nights”. Nastenka is a woman who befriended the dreamer (he doesn’t have a name) one night and explained to him how she was waiting for her lover, a lodger to return back to her so they could get married. The irony is her coddling grandmother tried prevent her from falling in love and getting any ideas of running away with a lover. One day the lodger had given them books to read and her grandmother asked Nastenka to search inside of them for love letters and the name of the authors so she would know whether they were romance novels or not. Nastenka asked her grandmother what’s wrong with the books to which her grandmother responded “it’s all about how young men seduce decent girls, and how on the excuse that they want to marry them, they elope with them and then leave them to their own fate, and how the poor creatures all come to a bad end. I’ve read a great many such books” (Dostoevsky 32). However, the inevitable still happened where Nastenka wanted to make the cliché move of running away with the lodger from her grandmother. In the text it says “I couldn’t go on living with my grandmother any more, that I didn’t want to be fastened pin all my life, and that, if he liked, I’d go to Moscow with him because I couldn’t live without him” (Dostoevsky 36). This text also shows that when someone is sheltered they won’t know what is wrong or right when they do enter a real relationship in the future. This a common theme that shows up in all literature, over dramatizing being with a lover willing to risk it all. Words have power and what someone reads can impact their mindset immensely. These books are examples indicating that real people might think this is how love should be, a longing to be with the one your heart desires.

Gogol’s shows his dislike towards fashioned love by making a statement of killing Piskarev. It’s how he dies which enacts a reaction within the readers, slitting his throat with a blade. The last straw for Piskarev was when he finally approached the prostitute and confessed his love saying they would be poor but could make a relationship work. She flat out denied him saying she did not want to work or get married. When someone doesn’t fit your initial expectation it can crush you causing you to act out irrationally possibly hurting them or yourself. Something to keep in mind is that you can’t change people, putting such high presumptions on a person not only puts pressure on them but yourself because then you’d constantly have to keep up with them. Being exposed to mass media enhances how people think they should view one another, this is real world problem discussed in the article “Sex, Love, and Romance in the Mass Media: Analysis and Criticism of Unrealistic Portrayals and Their Influence”, by Mary-Lou Galician. In it she mentions “these unrealistic portrayals can have serious negative consequences for so many of us – males and females, young and old, singles and couples. It’s particularly important to take some of that power back and be more in charge of our beliefs and behaviors” (Galician 4). Anyone can fashion their love or be the one who someone else is fashioning, it doesn’t matter who they are or how old they are it’s easy to do. An example of this happened in “A Hero of Our Time: Princess Mary” by Mikhail Lermontov. Mary falls for Pechorin after he saves her from having to dance with a drunk man at a ball, quoted from the story “I went up to the drunk, took him rather firmly by the arm and looking steadily into his eyes, asked him to go away, because, I added, the princess had long ago promised to dance the mazurka with me” (Lermontov 109). Immediately after she falls for Pechorin only because he saves her and doesn’t realize he’s really playing her. He made it seem like he had an interest in her when he just wanted to make her fall in love with him which works, and at the end he breaks her heart. He knew what he was doing purposely making it seem like he had no interest in her so she would chase him even more, this common in mass media “playing hard to get”. He even admits that he’s done it multiple times with women before and the same story always plays out. The Don Quixote effect is also represented where someone feels the need to always be the hero and save people or damsels in distress, in this case Mary was the damsel while Pehcorin was the hero. She fashioned Pechorin into being her savior.

Women are deemed more susceptible to falling in love, mass media targets them thinking they’re going to use these unrealistic concepts when developing a real relationship. Like they’ll try and compare their partners to a prince or common stereotypes of how men are portrayed in media. This idea of the girl always needing to be saved relates to the article “Realistic Love: Contemporary College Women’s Negotiations of Princess Culture and the ‘Reality’ of Romantic Relationships” by Amanda Koontz, Lauren Norman, and Sarah Okorie which mentioned how love is feminized. Using the example “Disney films depicted happiness as obtained by finding a man (with women’s physical appearance of import), relationships as easily maintained through the image of “love at first sight,”” (539).  This quote represents how undermined women are viewed in society making Mary only chase after Pechorin when he did something to “show his worth”. This view also explains Piskarev’s shocked demeanor when he’s dismissed by the prostitute. Women weren’t supposed to be this outgoing, independent, or have minds of their own because they have to be proper. The prostitute broke the norms of a 19^th century Russian women without having any shame and wasn’t willing to give up her lifestyle for anyone. “Sex, Love, and Romance in the Mass Media: Analysis and Criticism of Unrealistic Portrayals and Their Influence” also brought up another point that “Today, many critics claim that our reality as individuals and as a society has been shaped and even perverted by the mass media” (Galician 53). Relationship therapist feel the same way saying “mass media of brainwashing consumers with portrayals of romanticized love that is unattainable as a goal and unhealthy as a model and, thereby, contributing to the construction of these unrealistic expectations” (authors name 3). Fashioned love was a problem back and it still hasn’t changed today, if anything it’s worse with more sources to impact us. The ideology for most people is if your relationship lacks drama then it’s not real love.

I understand that, yes fashioned love still occurs today and it’s not right to implement it in any relationship, however there are some people that know right from wrong and don’t fashion their love. This claim is also accurate because all relationships are different with people being able to acknowledge the hardships and struggles that come with a relationship. There’s also the alternative that some people don’t know they’re fashioning their love and do it unconsciously. A lot of college student are still in between transitioning from kid to adult and can’t even decide on choosing a major yet, just like how your profession changes your life so can a relationship. The article “Media’s Influence on Self-Image and Romantic Relationship Decision-Making in College-Age Clients: What Mental Health Counselors Should Know” by Isaac Burt mentioned “college-aged persons struggle with making good personal decisions stem from a lack of maturity and over-dependence on others for guidance” (Burt, paragraph 5). Showing that sometimes people are just confused and need to learn on their own and grow from situations. The article also brings up another point that some people purposely sabotage their relationship, and fashioning their love is an example of that. The article states “self-defeating behavior, such as intentionally sabotaging a relationship because of anxiety, negatively affects a person’s future outlook on relationships” (Burt, paragraph 6). Sometimes people lack confidence or haven’t grown up in the best environment impacting their views on relationship. People need to go through trials and tribulation themselves figuring out a relationship, considering you don’t know what it’s going to be like because all people are different. So you inevitably chose to gain wisdom from the sources you have around you because that’s all you know. Again the article mentioned the example of reality television and its influence “these reality shows do not accurately depict real-life, as producers attempt to make them more sensational in order to provide drama” (Burt, paragraph 7). It’s understandable that people are influenced by mass media it’s unescapable and easily accessible. Nevertheless, if continue to fashion your love in every relationship and are unwilling to learn from your mistakes then you’ll be purposely setting yourself up for failure most likely ending up alone. Another factor to add onto this problem is the mention of divorce “Divorce rates in America is now half of the marital rate” (Galician 3) after people enter marriages they sometimes realize they might have been too caught up in the moment or a person wasn’t who you initially thought they were.

Being exposed to mass media can really effect the psychological structure of a person’s mindset. They mix up how they should love and how love should be viewed. Then the question is raised, if it’s not like other relationships I’ve seen am I in the right relationship? Both parties to feel pressure from everyone to act a certain way and show people that they have such a loving perfect relationship. However, people only see what’s on the outside and not the inside. When the prostitute rejects Piskarev she says, “What!” interrupting his speech with an expression of some disdain continuing, “I’m no laundress or seamstress that I should do any work!” (Gogol 266). When she says this she comes off as harsh bruising his ego along and leaving him devastated. Adding onto the pain is he’s not in a real life relationship with her but the relationship in his head was built over a period of time so that made her rejection damage him further. This shows that Piskarev let it get that far to the point where his mental health was ruptured and drove him to suicide.

Russian literature helps acknowledge everyday predicaments like fashioned love. Some become so consumed and caught up in having a perfect relationship that when expectations aren’t met it can be disheartening. Fashioned love plays a significant part in real relationships, the term can really make you ask yourself why you’re really in a relationship. What if you’re not in it for the right reasons? Think about it, do you constantly base your relationship off of books, movies, or any other medias? Or, do you have a relationship with a few occasional slips? Sometimes people feel the peer pressure from others around them and jump into relationships because they feel they have to. In Gogol’s work he tries to warn us of the damaging effects fashioned love brings about, both physically and mentally. Piskarev physically harmed himself by committing suicide, but it was due to becoming obsessed with a woman created from the figment of his imagination. Many other Russian authors agree with him and include fashioned love in their writings as well like Lermontov, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky. However, with that being said there are couples that do know how to distance themselves from mass media and aim to have relationships with a strong foundation.

CUNY Academic Commons (For Professor Fetherolf): https://annishasingh.commons.gc.cuny.edu/research-researched-critical-analysis-essay-fashioned-love/

Work Cited Page:

Primary Sources-

1. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. White Nights. 1848.

This is one of the short stories I use as an example in my persuasive essay. Nastenka one of the main characters is overprotected and controlled by her grandmother and as a result rebels. A lodger who used to rent the upstairs of their house gave them books and the grandmother makes Nastenka check what the books are about, the authors, and actually inside the books to make sure there aren’t any love letter to Nasktenka from the lodger. The grandmother doesn’t want Nastenka to read certain books about romance and get ideas about running away with a lover or some forbidden love. However, this backfires anyways and Nastenka goes to the lodger one night confessing her feelings for him willing to risk her honor by running away with the lodger because she fell in love with him and didn’t want to be tied down anymore.

• Gogol, Nikolai. Nevsky Prospect. 1835.

This book is one of the most important referencing Piskarev a man who mistakes a prostitute for an honorable lady one night and then goes home and for nights he dreams of her and makes up a personality for her. He falls in love with his version of her and starts merging reality with imagination with coins the term “fashioned love” and when he meets this woman in real life his dreams are shattered because she is the complete opposite from his imagination. He imagines her the way every Russian man wanted a wife, the ideal submissive. Unable to come to terms with eh real her he kills himself by slitting his throat.

• Lermontov, Mikhail. “Princess Mary.” A Hero of Our Time, Alfred A. Knopf, INC., 1958, pp. 78–163.

Marry is a girl who’s from a wealthy family and during the 19^th Century Russia was big on the French influence so she was influenced by a lot of French ideals. She sees the other character Pechorin as a hero figure like in French novels who saves her one night from having to dance with a drunk man. A lot of books are about damsels in distress being save and this was a situation she and Pechorin find themselves in and she ends up falling in love with him while he was just playing with her emotions the whole time to beat this game in head.

Secondary Sources-

• Burt, Isaac. “Media’s Influence on Self-Image and Romantic Relationship Decision-Making in College-Age Clients: What Mental Health Counselors Should Know.” Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, vol. 13, no. 3, July 2018, pp. 275–287. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/15401383.2018.1426508.

This article talks about how relationship get more confusing around the time of college and how college student tends to more a little more indecisive when applying their real life to relationships. One of the major problems is there are different types of social media and information that student don’t know how to distinguish it and instead applies all the information together. This also takes a more psychological approach about how different factors like self-esteem turn kids to media and they tend to think they need to be a certain way to develop a relationship, specifically a romantic one.

• Galician, Mary-Lou. Sex, Love, and Romance in the Mass Media: Analysis and Criticism of Unrealistic Portrayals and Their Influence, Taylor & Francis Group, 2003. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ccny-ebooks/detail.action?docID=234272.

This book talks about different aspects of how the media influences our decisions on love. There’s a part the author talks about a quiz she created for people to take with 12 myths on it, she’s not saying that these ideologies and expectation of love are necessarily wrong, but they’re not in the norm and can influence us to think it’s the norm affecting our mindsets more negatively.

• Koontz, Amanda, et al. “Realistic Love: Contemporary College Women’s Negotiations of Princess Culture and the ‘Reality’ of Romantic Relationships.” Journal of Social & Personal Relationships, vol. 36, no. 2, Feb. 2019, pp. 535–555. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0265407517735694.

This article is about the television and movie influences of a relationship to women from ages 18-24. They reference the impact princesses, specifically Disney princess have on the mindset of girls. They ask questions about love and their idea on loves and how they apply what you see to your real relationship and if they do at all. This article is good to prove the point of the fact that fashioned love is still something that happens today in modern society and not only during the Victorian era, which is also mentioned at the beginning of the article.