Les Amoureux
Why the happy ending?
It goes back 50,000 years and more.
Ancient stories from the Aboriginal peoples of Australia explain how the top of the mountain came to be flat, how the kangaroos got their tails and why the rain doesn't always come. The story is an explanation that ties everything together in a neat bow.
A story - a traditional story - is an attempt to explain. Why did she do that? What will be the consequences? How will she cope?
But why happy? It isn't necessarily so. In fact, happy and unhappy are the endings of two near-identical stories that we give different names: comedy and tragedy.
In the comedy, confusion and misunderstanding reign until, at the last, all is revealed in the nick of time.
Wedding bells.
In the tragedy, misunderstanding and confusion persist until a little too late and bride and groom are dead or mad or in prison or exile.
The evolution of a story is often a question of timing. It is hard to make things come out just right, to tie together the various strands of the plot in a neat set-piece scene. The Lovers - the Amoureux - offer that possibility, of course. They represent harmony, completion, the perfect circle described by true love, the closed system of perfect trust.
For some – obsessed by sex, determined to circumscribe its role – the Tarot of the Lovers can illustrate the tension between sacred and profane love. Perhaps arising out of this, the card can imply some kind of test, trial and judgement.
Therefore the card, when reversed, suggests failure, perhaps that the Lovers have themselves have failed, perhaps a more abstract meaning. Separation is implied. Interference from others. Lack of completion. Lack of trust. Lack of faith.
Finally, the Tarot of the Lovers laid on the table reversed can suggest an unwise plan, a doomed venture. You, the reader, know that what they are about to do is wrong, but there is nothing you can do to stop it happening. You call out: 'No, don't do that!'
But the characters in the novel won't listen to you.
Fascinated, you turn the page …
