Ironic Portrayals in "The Love of My Life".
Coraghessan Boyle tells the story of a teenage couple, China and Jeremy, whose mindless actions completely transform their lives. In the beginning of the short story, Boyle paints a pretty picture of a couple obsessively in love with one another. The two have just graduated from high school with a world full of promise ahead. They are both children loved by their parents. Everything in their lives seems in place for them to have happy and successful futures. Their carelessness in conceiving a baby and their subsequent choice to discard of it in a dumpster sets the stage for a future full of misery. The greatest irony in the short story is that despite the couple's great love for one another, the love from their parents, and their promising education prospects their fate is sealed in a single wrong decision.
Boyle begins the story by portraying the magical love the two had for each other. "There was no feeling like this, no triumph, no high - it was like being unconquerable, like floating" (613). They kissed every time they met. They said I love you "a hundred times a day". The reader comes to expect this magical love to stand "unconquerable" but ironically their love is shattered. After they discover they are expecting a baby they are in constant battle with each other, "Because they argued now, they wrangled and fought and debated" (617). Jeremy reluctantly answers yes when China asks him if he still loves her. He has "no smile on his face. No human expression at all. They didn't kiss - they didn't even touch" (618). Jeremy cannot even conjure an image of China in his mind while he is away from her: "What did she look like? What was her face like, her nose, her hair, her eyes and breasts and the slit between her legs?" (623). Earlier in the story, Jeremy similarly tries to picture his mother but he cannot. He probably feels the same disattachement from China as he did from his mother, who is shacked up for the weekend with a man that she has been dating.