ABSTRACT

This chapter charts how leaving and letting go become gestures of love, which hook moments of open vulnerability to intense suffering that occurs in and after scenes of leaving. These departures signal not the end of love but evidence of its gravity. The three series represent leaving as a misguided but necessary step toward a fulfilling erotic love. A metaphor of being broken reverberates throughout the three series as relationships break up and leave broken bodies in their wake. It focuses primarily on the speech acts that assert leaving or letting go as a right action because it protects a beloved. The chapter also analyzes the physical pain that results from these break-ups. In each case, pain occurs on the body as a metaphoric wound but also as embodied pain, usually portrayed as tears or as an ache in the chest where the heart exists.