Love is a fallacy review

Love is a fallacy review

“Love is a fallacy” is a short story by Max Shulman about a narrator who tries to find a romantic partner by using logic. His love interest is a beautiful woman named Polly Espy, who is involved with the narrator’s roommate, Petey Bellows. He gives Petey a raccoon coat that he has been desiring in exchange for the girl. The narrator describes Polly as uneducated and tries to teach her about fallacies so that she may become intelligent enough to be his wife (Shulman, 2). In the end, however, she still chooses the roommate. The story is both anti-woman and anti-man. This essay analyzes the character of the unnamed narrator. He is portrayed as having an arrogant attitude since he believes that he should only marry an intelligent woman. He is a selfish person who believes that he can control Polly Epsy’s feelings. The writer employs ethos, pathos, logos, and Kairos in the story. He also incorporates literary devices such as similes, alliteration, metaphors, and juxtaposition to bring out various aspects of the plot. In the play, the unnamed character is used to show that love cannot be won with logic. People should be loved and accepted the way they are without trying to change them. He is also used to show that one cannot be forced to fall in love if they are not willing to. His character also demonstrates that sexism should not be practiced by making negative speculations regarding a certain gender.

The selected character for this paper is the unnamed main character. In the play, the character represents people who have are sexists. He assumes that Polly is unintelligent based on her language. This shows that he already has a preformed judgment to assume that women are not as intelligent as men are. He also concludes that his roommate Petey is unintelligent since he is upset that he is unable to afford the fashionable raccoon coat (Shulman, 1).

Beyond the world of the play, his character represents judgmental people who make assumptions about others without getting to know them first. He also represents people who demean women by thinking that they are inferior to men. He is also a staunch character who sticks to his ideas about love. The role contributes to the play’s theme through his actions which inform about ideas such as love and sexism.

In the story, Shulman applies ethos effectively because the narrator is a law student who will soon be practicing law (Harris, 43). In the first paragraph, he describes himself as “keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute, and astute.” In his description, he uses the simile “powerful as a dynamo” (Shulman, 1) to describe his brain. When he found his roommate lying on his ben seemingly in pain, he thought he had appendicitis and was quick to give him medical advice as he looked for a doctor. He manipulated his roommate into accepting the raccoon coat as an exchange for offering his girl to him. After his first date with Polly, he mentions that he will give Polly a course in logic since he is also taking one and has all the facts memorized (Shulman, 2). He mentions that he teaches her consistently until she finally understands them. She becomes so good at them such that she uses the idea of the fallacies to reject the narrator’s proposal.

The writer succeeds in using pathos effectively in the story because the character of the unnamed narrator is developed in a manner that makes most readers to have a feeling of dislike towards him (Harris, 47). He is portrayed as a proud and arrogant character. When he describes himself in the first paragraph, he boasts of the fact that he is intelligent at such a young age. He compares himself to his roommate Petey who is his age mate but “dumb as a fox” (Shulman, 1).Here, the writer uses a simile. He also says that Petey has “nothing upstairs” (Shulman, 1). This is use of satire to refer to how unintelligent he finds Petey to be. He is also portrayed as a nerd who spends his time in the library studying and does not care about fashion. Nerds are generally disliked by most people in a school setting. When Petey says he wants a raccoon coat, the narrator responds in surprise, “Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much. They’re unsightly” (Shulman, 1). Here, the writer uses alliteration as a literary device to show how much he detested the coat, even though it was fashionable (Literary Devices, 1). He also demeans women. He offers Petey a coat in exchange for his girl. This is somewhat an objectification of women as a commodity that can be offered in exchange for another. He also explains that his desire for Polly was not emotional, but rather selfish since he thought a woman like her would help to propel his law career.

Shulman successfully applies logos through the unnamed narrator because, during their dates, he teaches Polly how to identify fallacies so that she can develop logic (Harris, 50). In one of the fallacies called the post hoc, the narrator corrects Polly not to force a connection on things that are not related (Shulman, 2). He does this when she tries to tell him a story about a girl from her home. He repeatedly teaches her about the fallacies until she becomes smart and worthy to be his wife. In this case, the literary device used is a metaphor. His hard work to teach Polly is for the bigger purpose of preparing her to be his future wife. Polly also learns about the fallacies and uses them to respond to the narrators proposal of a romantic relationship. For each proposal that he gives, she responds with logic to show that it is not true.

The writer applies Kairos effectively in the story because the unnamed character selects the right opportunity to profess his love to Polly (Earle, 27). He decided that after teaching her logic for five nights, she was now ready to be in a romantic relationship with him. He proposed to her saying that “we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten along splendidly. It is clear that we are well-matched.” (Shulman, 3). Polly responded by saying that this was “hasty generalization,” (Shulamn, 3), which is one of the fallacies that the narrator had taught her. The literary device used in this case is juxtaposition, where the narrator and Polly are on parallel sides. Polly uses the same fallacies that the narrator taught her to counter each of his advances. Kairos is also demonstrated when the narrator takes advantage of Petey needing something to get something else from him in return. He offers Petey the raccoon fur coat in return for his girl. He has previously been admiring her and pounced on this opportunity to get her.

The paper about the unnamed character in Max Shulman’s “Love is a fallacy.” He attempts to win the love of a girl by teaching her about logic. In the story, the author applies ethos, pathos, logos and Kairos as well as literary devices such as similes and metaphors. These bring out interesting details about the plot. The moral of this story is that women, too are intelligent and not as gullible as some men may think they are. Through the story, a reader can understand this concept when Polly uses logic to turn down the narrator’s proposal to be his lover. He is unable to manipulate her into the relationship since she is not as susceptible as he initially thought. Love is not something that can be forced onto an individual, but rather grows and a person is able to choose who they want to love. True love accepts a person the way they are without trying to change them. Despite all the work the narrator put in to teach Polly, she still chose to be with Petey. Regardless of the narrator being smart, he was still outwitted by Polly when it came to love. Therefore, love is a fallacy.