The Jeweler’s Shop

“Sometimes human existence seems too short for love. At other times it is, however, the other way around: human love seems too short in relation to existence – or rather too trivial. At any rate, every person has at his disposal an existence and a Love.” – The Jeweler’s Shop

Karol Wojtyla also known as St. John Paul II wrote volumes upon volumes of works on the metaphysics, psychology, and ethics of love. One of his earlier works, The Jeweler’s Shop, is a play full of beautiful dialogue between characters deeply pondering and discovering what love really is. To briefly explain there are three acts…

1. Teresa and Andrew – a young couple discerning marriage
2. Anna and Stefan – an older couple struggling with the idea of infidelity.
3. Monica and Christopher – the children of each couple discerning marriage while also holding onto the wounds of their parents.

The block quote above explains the struggle between the first two couples. Andrew dies in the war a few years into their marriage and this is what it means when Karol Wojtyla says “human existence seems to short.” (88) On the contrary when Wojtyla says, “human love seems to short in relation to existence,” this represents what Anna and Stefan are presented with – a lack of love many years into their marriage.

At the heart of Wojtyla’s philosophy of love is this idea of the individual’s human existence. Teresa and Andrew seem to understand this concept very well. Metaphysically Andrew sees that Teresa is her own person affected deeply by the actions he makes and vice versa. We see this when the character Andrew states, “Teresa was a whole world, just as distant as any other man, as any other woman  – and yet there was something that allowed one to think of throwing a bridge.” (25) Andrew begins to think of Teresa as his “alter ego,” meaning his second self. As he loves himself he should also love Teresa. Andrew and Teresa seem to understand metaphysically what marriage implies which is a totality of existence with one another. They seem to hold onto the past tightly while also scared of the future, but trust that the other will love the other’s existence wherever that may lead.

In the couple of Anna and Stefan we see deep hurt in the person of Anna. Stefan only cares deeply about his existence and intern Anna has lost what it means to love another’s existence. They seem to lack fondness for the other which is essential in love. Fondness is an act of the will which sees good in the other person. Anna has completely lost this and is quite frightened when she sees the face of Stefan as the one she is to love. There is an internal ethic debate that Anna has within herself trying to see if she can find love in another man. What she is confused with is the totality of what love is as is explained to her by a connecting character between all the couples, Adam, who says,

“The surface of love has its current – swift, flickering, changeable. This current is sometimes so stunning that it carries people away – women and man. They get carried away by the thought that they have absorbed the whole secret of love, but in fact they have not yet even touched it.” (58)

Anna sees at the end of her vision “the Bridegroom,” who represents the sacrificial love that we are suppose to show as Christ did. She sees the face of Stefan in the Bridegroom and asks at the end of her act “Why? Why?” She wants the surface level current and is considering doing anything to be swept away by the current, but at the end of her act she is faced with this deeper love that we see present in the first couple. Will she will this love or be swept away by the current? This is what we are left with to ponder as so is she.

Lastly we see the idea of love affecting us psychologically in the characters of Monica and Christopher. They both seem to be affected by the way their parents loved. Monica being deeply affected by the lack of love shown between her parents and Christopher being bold in his love, but also fearful for his bride-to-be because of the fate of his father. Monica asks the question so deeply wounded in her heart, “Is human love at all capable of enduring through man’s whole existence?” (75) There is this great fear that Christopher will love like Monica’s father did, but Christopher is different, he is like his Father Andrew. It ends with Monica and Christopher going off as the character Adam states,

“They have simply gone to ponder for a while: the create something, to reflect the absolute Existence and Love,

must be the most wonderful of all!” (90)

This creation is this bridge that Christopher’s father ponders so deeply on how to create between him and his spouse. This bridge between two individual Existences. Love is the gap between these two Existences, not the current that Anna desires to be swept up in when we first meet her. This love of benevolence that will’s the good of another’s Existence. Love never is but only constantly becomes and is constantly being created throughout the human Existence.