The Importance Of Love In David Foster Wallace's Short Stories

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What is love? This is a question that I often ask myself. Still, I don’t have a definite answer. I find that because love is just an emotion people are free to show it however they wish or to not show it at all. Love is just so complicated. Whether it’s someone’s personal issues or a simple loss in interest, things rarely really work out. Regardless, we all feel it. In David Foster Wallace’s short stories, we the readers take a look at two different scenarios involving love. In particular a love that fails. In the stories “Here and There” and “Everything is Green” Wallace demonstrates his lack of belief that love can last. Wallace shows us how love is too good to be true, at least for one of the people involved. According to Wallace there is …show more content…
Boswell states “he must confront the fat that she is not a formula with rule that he can master” (Boswell 92). I agree with the idea of Bruce approaching life situation like a math problem. Clearly Bruce finds comfort in the ability to be in the know no matter the issue. Consequently, he struggles to adjust himself to the norms of only knowing what people want him to know. This is why Bruce seems so distant throughout the story. He cannot connect with people and fears a deep connection with them. Emotional connections are things that he cannot dissect to make sense of and this is what troubles him. Although he definitely loves his ex-girlfriend he can only show her as well as he knows how to. Which obviously isn’t well …show more content…
Wallace tells us about a forty eight year old man named Mitch who is in a relationship with a very young woman named Mayfly. The issue here is that Mayfly has an affair and Mitch finds out. Mayfly doesn’t admit to it though. She tries to redirect Mitch’s thoughts to something positive as she says “Everything is Green. Look how green it all is Mitch (Wallace 230). Yet, everything isn’t really green. Mitch is heartbroken and adores Mayfly but he doesn’t get that same affection in return. Mitch says “In me there is needs which you cannot even see anymore, because there is too many needs in you that are in the way” (Wallace 229). In a relationship the efforts have to be fifty-fifty. Without that the relationship is bound to fail. In the story we see that Mayfly isn’t as invested and never responds to Mitch’s confessions of love. This indicates that the love in their relationship is one sided. Interestingly the literal meaning of Mayfly is a very short lived fly. This symbolizes the reality of Mitch’s and Mayfly’s relationship. It just wasn’t meant to last

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