Follow Your Heart
Follow Your HeartThe novel is titled Follow your Heart because Olga, the grandmother who wrote the letters, tried to convey to her Granddaughter that unless she follows her heart, she will never be happy. Olga has this viewpoint because during her life she didn't follow her heart, and made decisions based upon what other people had to say, no matter what she felt.
There were many times throughout Olga's life where she didn't follow her dreams. One example of this was when she married Augusto. Olga didn't really love Augusto. Her mother and father adored Augusto, and to make her parents happy, she married him. Olga though, was unhappy, and the quote "After three years of marriage, my one and only thought was of death" describes Olga's unhappiness and how she didn't follow her heart when she married Augusto. Olga would have happily left him and moved back to Trieste, but the quote "Why didn't I pack my bags and return to Trieste? Because at that time neither separation nor divorce existed" explains why she didn't leave. At that time marriages "could only be ended in the case of very serious ill treatment." Augusto never hurt Olga, so she had no decent reason to leave him, although her heart was against staying with him.
Another time where Olga didn't follow her heart was when she didn't go to University. Olga dearly wanted to go to University to receive a "classical education." Her father though, believed there was no point to it and felt that if she wanted to go study something, she should study languages. After Olga finished Grammar School she told her father that she "intended to go to the University of Rome." Her father wouldn't consider sending his daughter to the University, and the quote "as was custom...
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