Unrequited Love
Cordelia’s letters employ subtexts of unreciprocated love: “ Is there no hope at all, then? Might your love never awaken again? That you did love me, I know, even though I do not know what it is that makes me sure of it. I will wait, however long the time is for me; I will wait, wait until you are tired of loving others.” Manifestly, Cordelia is in love with Johannes, yet Johannes is not equally smitten with her. Hence, their love is not unequivocally mutual. Cordelia’s letter is a plea to Johannes to return the love so it can be reciprocal.
Seduction
Soren Kierkegaard explains, “He (the seducer) appears also to have been practiced in a different kind of procedure, which is altogether typical of him, for he was much too endowed intellectually to be a seducer in the ordinary sense. One sees from the diary that what he at times desired was something totally arbitrary, a greeting, for example, and would accept no more at any price...With the help of his intellectual gifts, he knew how to tempt a girl, how to attract her without caring to possess her in the stricter sense. I can picture him as knowing how to bring a girl to the high point where he was sure that she would offer everything. When the affair had gone so far, he broke off without the least overture having been made on his part, without a word about love having been said, to say nothing of a declaration, a promise.” The seducer’s climax transpires when a girl has unconditionally fallen in love with him. His resolution to dissolve an affair after the climax depicts him as a narcissist seducer who uncaringly exploits girls’ emotions to quell his egoistical spirits. The seducer is an expert of seducing but he cannot commit to treasure and adulate a girl after she has fallen for him.
