The story “The Love of My Life” was written by T. Coraghessan Boyle in 2000. The short story is based on news events from the years preceding and won Boyle the O. Henry Award in 2001. This is a tragic story about a young couple, Jeremy and China, whose extremely poor decision would turn their lives upside down. In the beginning of the short story, Boyle paints a picture of a perfect high school couple who are “madly” in love with one another. They spend every second together and kiss every time they leave sight of each other. They are both good students on their way to college and have a world full of promise ahead. During their summer break, they take a camping trip in which they have unprotected sex. After they both head off to separate colleges
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China believes that 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". Boyle describes how they kissed every time they met because "that was love, that was the way love was". Teenage love can be a powerful force, as it was in this story, it can be in real life too. These early romances can influence your lifelong attitudes about love, and even about themselves. I remember my first love as a teenager; it can consume you and almost make you lose focus of everything else around you. It can also lead you to make irrational decisions without considering your future. Ultimately, I believe that is what happened to Jeremy, “And then the last thing he said to her, just as they were pulled apart, and it was nothing she wanted to hear, nothing that had any love in it, or even the hint of love: ‘You told me to get rid of it.’ ” He was so consumed and focused on his singular love to China that he was ignorant to the fact that there was another life involved. The love that they had for each other died along with their baby. In the end, China ended up testifying that Jeremy acted alone in the death of their baby, in order to save her own …show more content…
Just get rid of it”. Boyle does a great job of portraying the characters early in the story as model teenagers who are madly in love, but I am sure every person who reads this story hates China and Jeremy by the end. Although their story is not a perfect one, neither are people’s real lives. The choice to have an abortion is not only a problem that China and Jeremy faced; it is a problem for millions of people every year. An estimated thirty-five percent of all women will have at least one abortion by the time they are forty-five years old. Forty-seven percent of all abortions are performed on women who have had at least one previous abortion. Over two hundred thousand teenagers have abortions in the United States every year. I have been fortunate that I have never had to face that decision in my life and I am glad I never will. I have had a friend who became pregnant as a teenager and made the decision to have an abortion. I know she lived with regret about it and it left a hole in her heart until she had her son years
China believes that 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". Boyle describes how they kissed every time they met because "that was love, that was the way love was". Teenage love can be a powerful force, as it was in this story, it can be in real life too. These early romances can influence your lifelong attitudes about love, and even about themselves. I remember my first love as a teenager; it can consume you and almost make you lose focus of everything else around you. It can also lead you to make irrational decisions without considering your future. Ultimately, I believe that is what happened to Jeremy, “And then the last thing he said to her, just as they were pulled apart, and it was nothing she wanted to hear, nothing that had any love in it, or even the hint of love: ‘You told me to get rid of it.’ ” He was so consumed and focused on his singular love to China that he was ignorant to the fact that there was another life involved. The love that they had for each other died along with their baby. In the end, China ended up testifying that Jeremy acted alone in the death of their baby, in order to save her own …show more content…
Just get rid of it”. Boyle does a great job of portraying the characters early in the story as model teenagers who are madly in love, but I am sure every person who reads this story hates China and Jeremy by the end. Although their story is not a perfect one, neither are people’s real lives. The choice to have an abortion is not only a problem that China and Jeremy faced; it is a problem for millions of people every year. An estimated thirty-five percent of all women will have at least one abortion by the time they are forty-five years old. Forty-seven percent of all abortions are performed on women who have had at least one previous abortion. Over two hundred thousand teenagers have abortions in the United States every year. I have been fortunate that I have never had to face that decision in my life and I am glad I never will. I have had a friend who became pregnant as a teenager and made the decision to have an abortion. I know she lived with regret about it and it left a hole in her heart until she had her son years