Reponse to T.C. Boyle's "The Love of My Life"

This piece involves a lot of summary, which allows it to cover a lengthy span of time. It begins when the two main characters are in high school, and ends after their freshmen year of college, reducing an entire year into 19 pages. Summary becomes very necessary to keep the story moving. The author selects a few scenes to dwell on. At first, it is difficult to discern what the actual plot will be, since the first scene at Jeremy's mom's house seems a little disconnected from the story of their planned trip to the wilderness. Their trip is summarized, then all of their freshman fall semester is summarized.

Of course, the story of her pregnancy gives the piece some continuity, but the author also uses other aspects of each scene to create unity. The imagery of the weather, the roads iced over, in the very first scene when the two are alone at Jeremy's mothers' house is repeated on the night when China gives birth. This helps to connect two seemingly little-related scenes. The author also draws parallels between China's dorm life, described in a single paragraph, and her time at Sarah Barnes Cooper Women's Correctional Institute. The food "was exactly what they served at the dining hall in college", and the room was "just like a dorm room, except that they locked you in at night" (147). Finally, the author describes both the frozen night at Jeremy's mother's house and the baby as "alien" (134 and 143). She compares the child to the monster in the movie, like one of the "slasher" movies they used to watch which sent the message "Teens have sex and then they pay for it in body parts". The single reference to the movie Alien reminds the reader of this earlier comment, creating a comparison between the situation of the two teenagers and the slasher movies. Also, the image of the moon is used to unify the piece. China quotes a John Donne poem to Jeremy, saying she loves him "more than moon" (139). As she grows with her pregnancy, he begins to call her "more than moon" since her stomach is so round and white (140). The note that she sends him during the trial references the poem again, saying that she loves him more than moon (148). All of these images serve to unify the story.

The theme of love is dealt with in this story, quite extensively, raising the question about the definition of the word. The two teens define it in terms of actions. China seems to think love should be "the way it was in the movies, where the stars ambushed each other on beds the size of small planets and did it again and again until they lay nestled in a heap of pillows and blankets" (134). They kissed every time they met because "that was love, that was the way love was" (136), and for their spring break trip, Jeremy "didn't even bring his fishing rod, and that was love" (137). Their idea of love is called into question, though, once China is pregnant. Jeremy begins to think of her as "stupid", "stubborn", "irrational" (141). Yet he does what she asks when she tells him to "get rid of it", meaning the child (144). Does love mean doing whatever someone asks you to do? The reader is lead to question the validity of China's love, too, because in the end she chooses to testify against Jeremy, blaming him for the death of their child, claiming to have believed she had a miscarriage. Yet she claims to still love him.