Love often reveals some of the innermost feelings of one’s own being, these could be the true feelings a toddler understands freely, a teenager happens to be wandering around to be clarified and an adult often dismisses in the disguise of intelligence and success. However, it basically is human relationships that occur between one another. Considering the above realities, the following essay compares the loves depicted in two of the most amazing short stories of all time, namely Love is a Fallacy by Max Shulman and The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. What actually is true love and how the authors have shown it. The love portrayed in Love is a Fallacy is based on emotion or logic.
Max Shulman talks about a relationship that went beyond the logical comprehension of the narrator in The Love is a Fallacy. He exposes the folly of those who think life is planned ahead in accordance with one’s own intellect and love is attainable through calculated and entirely cerebral moves. The narrator in the story is a freshman in a law school, whose ambition was to be one of the most successful lawyers. When he assessed himself, he possessed all the elements to fulfill his dream. As he noticed the lives of the successful lawyers, they all have been married to intelligent, beautiful, and gracious women. Thus he covets Polly who was his roommate’s girl. The intelligent idiocy of the narrator is expressed at this instance as he declares that Polly Espy belonged to the above-said category with one omission that she was not an intellectual, the first notion of inferior intellect.
In his further attempt to win Polly, the narrator enquires to his roommate about his relation with Polly. He was trying to find out if his roommate, Petey Bellows, was in love with Polly. Petey acknowledged her to be a teen girl. It should have been understood by the narrator as an observation of being dedicated, enthusiastic, eager, devoted, ardent, and wholehearted, which could be considered as the occurrence felt at the beginning of true love. When the narrator further enquires if Petey and Polly had been steady, Petey responds in a way that clarifies their relationship to be one that of trust as he says they see each other often while they do have another dates. In other words, going steady was not an issue between them because they knew the intensity or the specialty of their relationship which was just beyond the rule of being steady. More than their intellect and logic, their hearts were beginning to be together and they were experiencing that intimacy.
While it takes a lot of emotional conception to reach the point of true love in the relationship between Polly and Petey, true love is illustrated clearly with its utmost intensity between Della and Jim. The whole world of pleasure for Della on Christmas Eve was the happiness of Jim. She bartered all she had for his happiness; she never had a second thought about her truant schoolboy looks that might cause Jim disinterest in her. At the back of her head, she always had the trust, all she wanted was the happy moments back in their life. True love, therefore, is unconditional giving. It is that tender feeling which would neither be rejected nor be expected in return.
However, the narrator in Love is a Fallacy represents a lot of people who move in life with prearranged romantic providence. In fact, these predetermined love traits either make or break one’s hopes. The real pleasure of love is experienced when the intellectual understanding of love is brushed aside. That is why Polly did not have to think long for a reason why she went steady with Petey. Similarly, Jim felt that their Christmas presents were too precious to be used at once.
At the same time, one’s experience in life makes one complete. The intellectual notion of love often creates plenty of life experiences that teach lessons in life, while the true falling in love might bring the serenity of feelings and strength to overcome the hot mess of life. As the narrator in his relationship with Polly understands the limitations of logic in radiating genuine love, Jim in his relationship realizes the joy of being together even at the loss of most precious belongingness. Such non-logicality is the most unfathomable factor of true love.
The love Jim and Della bore between them was feeling based and at the same time sacrificial. That is what caused her to be extremely joyful when she got home, even though a little bit of prudence told her to fix the hair in an appropriate manner so that she would become presentable. On seeing Della, Jim was in a trance and recovered very fast. He was all out to assure Della that she meant everything to him just as the way she is. Even when the author of the story felt that this was an unwise sacrifice for love, one who knows the real love would most certainly recognize how deep Della and Jim felt about their love for which they have sacrificed their most precious treasures.
Love is unconditional giving that is inspired by very tender and delicate consideration for one’s partner. Love has no envy, Love is kind and very patient, Love never boasts of intelligence and love never insists on its own ways. The narrator had all these elements when he loved Polly. Polly, on the other hand, had affection for Petey. It was a love that just occurred from the enjoyment of hearts being together and not from the emotions. For the very fact that love needs to be constant, love can not be feelings based for the feelings vary in different times and situations.
To conclude, love is a feeling that is generated deep down in one’s heart and purely experienced by the innocent of the heart. Shulman explains that every feeling is true and deep when it is experienced beyond the level of just intellect. That is when the hearts begin to feel the warmth of being close. The intensity of true love is felt in the extreme sacrifice of the most precious possessions. The possessions here would mean whatever one values the most. Thereby the true love enables one to give without expecting anything in return. The love of this category can be real because it does not look for a presumed love fate. Rather it always remains sacrificial and lets it happen by itself as Petey and Polly did.