COSI: Love & Fidelity

James Matthews

Love & Fidelity

• Love & Fidelity is a theme that is constant throughout Cosi

• There are contrasting views on the topic from different characters

• The time that Cosi is set is in the 1970’s.

This is a time that is sometimes referred to as the ‘era of free love’.

The era of free love is something that is associated with the characters Nick & Lucy whom do not believe in love & fidelity, but free love.

• Louis Nowra presents love & fidelity in different ways.On one side he shows the people who believe in free love and wanting ‘a fuck’.This is associated with characters like:Zac, Lucy, Nick and Doug

• On a contrasting side he shows that love & fidelity still exists.This is presented through the characters of Lewis, Julie, Cherry & Henry.

LEWIS• Lewis is a

character who believes in love & fidelity but experiences his own problems with love.

Lewis quotes

• - without love the world wouldn’t mean much

• - Woman's constancy is like the Arabian phoenix. Everyone swears it exists, but no one has seen it.

• - love is not so important now days

CHERRY• Cherry is a fat

dawg who believes in true love when it comes to Lewis. She is obsessive about love and gets jealous easily. Always stuffing Lewis's face with food and attacking others when they try touching Lewis

- Love letter in the post tomorrow, lover

- Do you believe women are like that? That they aren't true and faithful? I am. With someone like you I could be true and faithful

- Most women fight hard to keep men out of their pants. You may like being foolish, but most women are not

DOUG• Doug is a character who wants a fuck. He’s a

very in your face kind of guy who likes knowing information about people. He has no limits when talking about love and fidelity and upfront about ‘want a root’

• -You get to fuck the actresses?-so you’re a poof-I believe in free love but its hard to do in here

• -want a root?

HENRY• -My mother only

loved my father, no one else. He died in Korea and she loved no one else but me.

Henry is showing that he believes in traditional love and staying true to one.

JULIE• Julie is a previous

drug addict who loves the feeling of being high on drugs.

•

Julies quotes

• - a laugh is as good as a fuck they say

-love is hallucinating without drugs - That’s what love is, being foolish- I don’t like men's double

standards

LUCY• Lucy to Lewis

-You have always confused lust with love.Lucy believes in free love and is telling Lewis that their relationship was one of physicality rather than love & fidelity. This is evident when she confesses her affair with nick when she tells Lewis

-I have sex with him and sleep with you

-Love is an emotional indulgence for the privileged few

NICK• Nick believes

in free love and meaningless sex and sees no problem having sex with his house mates girlfriend Lewis

- no, she's sleeping with you, we’re having sex

- Its only sex

ROY• Roy is a character

who has love for music. He

• -Love is what you feel when you don’t have enough emotion left to hate-Music is what love should be between people.

Roy Quote:

• -Its true, hate is a much more pure emotion. We choose our enemies with greater care then our lovers. That’s why hatred lasts longer, you have enemies for life but never lovers. Music is what love between humans should be.

RUTH

Ruth’s view on love and fidelity is a unique perception as she had disturbing events in her past with lovers. Such as a boyfriend that would tie her up so she couldn’t run away.

- Men like sex more than women because they don’t have to clean up the mess

ZAC• Zac is a drug addict

who loves sex and totally believes in free love and simply wants a fuck

- I suppose a fuck is out of the question?

- All I wanted was a fuck to calm me down

The end