Immerse Education Essay Winner – Iram Pannu
February 15, 2022
Iram Pannu, a student of Grade 8, has won a scholarship of 20% to take part in summer programs at Oxford, Cambridge and LSE through the Immerse Education Essay Competition 2022.
The Immerse Education Essay Competition provides students aged between 13 and 18 with the opportunity to submit essays related to their chosen subject. Iram presented her essay on the topic ‘Romance’. She did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the Romance genre and what it means to everyone.
Iram’s words depicted Romance differently amongst her competitors and pushed her to win. We are proud of your achievement, Iram. Best of luck for all future endeavours!
Romance
“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;”
– Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
Romance, a genre which has never failed to make my heart aflutter. The theme tugs at vulnerable hearts. Love, the word itself makes us feel an emotion, that some are desperately trying to find while some don’t want to believe in it’s existence. It tempts inquisitive teenagers along with wise adults with its overwhelming clichés and makes them believe that love is the most beautiful thing that one can experience.
Romance can be found in the deepest corner of a library, where only the hopeless romantics look, for a new journey down the rocky road of love to make their heart skip a beat. Even the most intellectual minds find themselves turned towards the calling of romance. Romance stirs something deep inside us which is not in our control.
Romance pulls us into a fairy tale, where we observe the love shared between two individuals. As we observe their growing admiration towards one another, we start to get emotionally connected to the characters and we hope to find love, the love which is in a romance novel.
Romance, as a genre, lets us be in a character’s shoes as we feel their extreme emotions take over us. It lets us empathise with the characters in their most difficult times and makes us celebrate in their happiest. Although, this is applicable for all genres, romance has much more to offer and one of those things is an assured happy ending. Happy endings have always seemed to reassure me that the love between the main leads is eternal, which makes it easier for oneself to connect to the characters. We understand them and put ourselves in their situation just to feel their happiness and their pain.
One of the greatest examples of eternal love is the love between Heathcliff and Catherine from Wuthering Height, by Emily Brontë. The love between Heathcliff and Catherine was so passionate that it destroyed the others around them. Catherine had a lot of pride due to which she tried to forget her love for Heathcliff and married Edgar Linton. But, her love for Heathcliff was much more than her pride. Though she was married to Edgar, she knew that she could never love him as much as she loved Heathcliff. Heathcliff never gave up on his love. One thing that never failed to surprise me was his faith in his love for Catherine.
There are countless people who assume that romance is mainly based on physical affection, but, romance is so much more. It’s about the emotional bond that a reader and the characters share. It’s more about the people and their emotions than the physical display of affection. Romance teaches us that love has no religion, caste or sex and that everyone has the right to love and be loved.
In conclusion to this, romance gives an encouraging and important message, which is that everyone deserves to be loved. It teaches us compassion and brings us together in a way that no other genre can.
