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An analysis Essay On “Love is a Fallacy” By Max Shulman.
Introduction.
Throughout any era, societies have always developed a norm for the public, whether it regards stereotypes, traditions, or trends. As such, there have resulted in controversies regarding these cultures’ aspects in contribution to inequalities and weird idealistic roles among people. These unrealistic assumptions on a person are mostly irrelevant or so. Among the most stereotyped social groups are women. Culturally, society has conditioned women to be regarded as dumb, inefficient, and weak in everything except on being housewives. At the same time, men are gracefully seen as acute and perspicacious individuals above women. This essay analysis paper narrows to examine the short story, “Love is a Fallacy,” to point out how the story portrays the aspect of who to love and if logic has to be the guiding principle. Though the story has been regarded veer towards being anti-women in regard to choosing who to love, it does not portray single-gender discrimination given its display of antagonistic views, as demonstrated in the essay herein.
Essay Analysis.
Max Shulman illustrates in “Love is a Fallacy” how his narrator, the protagonist, conditions women based on intelligence, appearance, and his expectations. From his story, “Love is a Fallacy,” Polly (women), is victimized as an inaccurate and unintelligent. Polly is presented and compared unfavorably to men. She represents a typical woman who is inferior to the roles of the 1950s. The narrator wanted to take advantage of Polly since he assumed her intelligent level and wanted to use it as a tool to promote his legal career. The story by Max Shulman stems out as anti-women from the actions of the protagonist. From the story, the narrator says, “I was aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s career.”
The narrator is consumed with faulty reasoning to believe that he can associate love logically, particularly with assumptions that serve to benefit himself. The narrator views Polly as only beautiful and nothing more. He wants to further his career by a woman that is beautiful but yet unaware that this could be a false premise. Love is variedly approached that it could be liked to the logic of who a person is and what he or she might be in need. Informally put, love originates from an error in reasoning than a proper logical form.
However, the story, too, proves aspects of being anti-man. From Shulman’s presentation of the protagonist, it suggests that men are foul characters who are only after what pleases them. From the story, the protagonist refers to Petey Bellow, the roommate who had borrowed the raccoon coat, as being dumb as an ox. From that point, it can be analyzed how the narrator patronizes Petey, who only wanted to have a raccoon coat and be like “big men” on the campus. These sets of stereotyping contribute to the story being anti-men, given the fact that the protagonist makes conclusions and remarks with a faulty premise, which jeopardizes his arguments. As an indication of how love becomes a fallacy, Polly, towards the end of the story, flips the script on the protagonist by using the narrator’s words against him. From the fallacies that the narrator taught Polly, he gets struck by them, which makes him like a “Frankenstein” in the situation. Therefore, if this story on love as a fallacy is regarded as an anti-woman, it is an anti-man as well, given that both the genders are at some points stereotypically characterized throughout the entire story.
Conclusion.
A person doesn’t have to reason logically to find love; love seems to happen. Typically, it is illogical to have opposites attract in matters of love. Polly goes back to Petey and not the protagonist, who seems to be on the opposite side, thus illogical. People who have similarities are highly likely to be compatible with each other, as provided by research. The protagonist of the story does not seem to understand the notion that one doesn’t need to apply logic in explaining who to love. From this, it is evident that Polly decides to love Petey Bellow for having the raccoon coat, and she doesn’t need a reason at all. The protagonist, in the end, is left shocked and concludes that Petey and Polly are not Intelligent at all.
Extra Credit Assignment
Emily Andrews’s Essay “Why I Don’t Spare “Spare Change.”
From the third paragraph, when Emily Andrew argues that it does cause more harm to give money to beggars on the street instead of giving to needy organizations like the United Way. She asserts that “one can feel that one’s money is likely to be used wisely.” Logically (Logos), her arguments that an individual may not be certain that he or she is giving a needy individual ascertains to her audience to indicate the reason behind her idea. However, ethically or character-wise (Ethos), his audience would seem great when she identifies herself as part of the system, which she does by insinuating that she prefers to offer her support through charitable organizations. Additionally, from the later paragraph, she captures the emotions(pathos) of her audience by introducing a phrase that points to those beggars who are “poor but honest.” This choice of words establishes an emotional sense to the audience, thus, taking account of how readers understand and feel regarding her arguments.