What does ‘On its good days’ of “On its good days, all this (live for love, die for love, kill for love) seems to make perfect sense mean?

Question

There is the following sentence in the Time magazine’s article “The science of romance: Why we love,” (Jan. 28, 2008), dealing with the mechanism of Love: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704672,00.html,> “People compose poetry, novels, sitcoms for love," says Helen Fisher,> an anthropologist at Rutgers University. “They live for love, die for> love, and kill for love. It can be stronger than the drive to stay> alive. > > **On its good days** (and love has a lot of them), all this seems to make> perfect sense. Nearly 30 years ago, psychologist Elaine Hatfield of> the University of Hawaii and sociologist Susan Sprecher now of> Illinois State University developed a 15-item questionnaire that ranks> people along what the researchers call the passionate-love scale.”I cannot get the idea of “*on its good* days.” ‘Good day’ here doesn’t seem to be a usual greeting word when parting from someone.I can understand “love has a lot of good days,” but I don’t understand what “(On its) good days” accounts for, and how “good days” are related with “Live for love, die for love and kill for love make perfect sense.”Can you exlain me?

Answer 1

"On its good days" is an is an anthropomorphism for love. Anthropomorphism is giving non-living things characteristics of human behaviors. In this case, love has good days and bad days. The bad days would be when someone would "kill for love." Someone might Or they might kill a person they are obsessed with if they think they can't have that person. But most of the time, love has good days. We treat the other person as if they are a treasure, or we would put ourselves in danger to push our own child out of the way of a moving car, or in other words, "die for love." Anthropomorphism is too common in people's writing when it is not necessary. In this passage, though, the author is using it as a literary device to get the point across that love can often consume us for both good and bad.

I hope that helps to understand. Now you can look for anthropomorphisms in other writings!