Jeremy's Burden

"Jeremy was different. He'd lost everything -- his walk, his smile, the muscles of his upper arms and shoulders. Even his hair lay flat now, as if he couldn't bother with a tube of gel and a comb. When she saw him at the arraignment, saw him for the first time since she'd climbed out of the car and limped into the dorm with the blood wet on her legs, he looked like a refugee, like a ghost" (8).

T.C. Boyle's story "The Love of My Life" begins with two teenagers, Jeremy and China, completely and totally infatuated with each other. After a night of unprotected sex, China gets pregnant and decides to keep it a secret from everyone. Even after Jeremy makes a feeble attempt at helping her, she forces him to remain quiet and not to reach out for help. Jeremy delivers the baby in secret and then leaves the baby "in the Dumpster out back" (6). When confronted with his wrongdoing by the police Jeremy is completely dumbfounded. Jeremy was so blindly confused all he can say was "What's this all about?" (7). Jeremy remains in shock as he vaguely recalls "that thing in the garbage sack" that he "fling... into the dumpster like a sack of flour"(7). Jeremy cannot even think of the baby as a human life but merely a "thing" that he was forced to get rid of. Jeremy's lack of emotion and complete confusion of his actions are indicators that he might have been in mental shock when he disposed of the baby.

Is Jeremy acting as a selfish murder or just an immature, emotionally disturbed boy looking to preserve his current life?

Babies Having Babies

"...she pulled open the freezer door and extracted a pint box of ice cream. She was in her socks, socks so thick they were like slippers, and a pair of black leggings under an oversize sweater. Beneath her feet, the polished floor boards were as slick as the sidewalk outside, and she liked the feel of that, skating indoors in her big socks.... She dug a finger into the ice cream and stuck it in her mouth."

The details in this passage could be describing a child- eating ice cream with your finger, playing slip-and-slide in your socks. At this and several other points in the story, Boyle references immaturity, irresponsibility, and a sense of entitlement to describe Jeremy and China, and I think it starts right here. The many "definitions" of love sprinkled throughout- kissing at every opportunity was love, not bringing a fishing pole on their fateful camping trip was love- are all naive oversimplifications of a complex process that often necessitates sacrifice, which these characters clearly know nothing about. These are two privileged teenagers who were so wrapped up in themselves that they easily justified committing a crime that no normal person in their position would even contemplate.


But....
Although Jeremy and China's selfishness and the horror of their crime are both evident, this is still, essentially, a love story, and lovers are generally sympathetic characters. Are we supposed to feel sympathy for Jeremy and China? Are we intended to champion their love, even while abhorring the moral depths to which it led them?

Lifeless Love

“At first, she called him every day, but mostly what she did was cry—‘I want to see it,’ she sobbed. ‘I want to see out daughter’s grave.’ That froze him inside. He tried to picture her—her now, China, the love of his life—and he couldn’t… because all he could remember was the thing that had come out of her…” (86)

After the death of the baby everything in Jeremy’s life was cold, still, and lifeless, just like the child he knowingly murdered. Most notably, his love for China faded into a cool regard. Even as he called her the love of his life, he could not picture her, just as he couldn’t picture his mother earlier in the story. The death of his father and of the baby result in the same loss of connection to someone he loved. When he describes both the baby and kissing China, he relates them to “cold meat,” emphasizing his perception of them as objects undeserving of compassion or value. Essentially, Jeremy is selfish. His love was founded more in an immature lust than any real connection, which is evident in how he handles the entire situation with a chilling passivity, even in the face of his crime. He sees his mother’s arguments, which demand empathy, as “pathetic” and ultimately his heart becomes “like sand turning to stone under all the pressure the planet can bring to bear.” However, this selfishness existed prior to his arrest, most evidently demonstrated in his ability to throw the baby in the dumpster despite its “rattle of a breath.” The only love Jeremy could foster was a love for himself and his interests. He did not consider the repercussions China would endure, both emotionally and physically in her life. While China may have truly loved Jeremy, the eventual distance that pervaded their relationship proves the shallow nature of their “love” that transformed into contempt under the strain of their situation.

Can what Jeremy and China had be called love, or were they simply two teenagers entranced by lust? Was it only Jeremy’s fault their lives were ruined, or by telling him to “get rid of it,” was China also to blame despite that she didn’t know the baby was alive?

When Two Socks Fall In Love

T.C. Boyle's "The Love of My Life", tells the story of two ambitious selfish so totally in "love" teenagers whose whole world revolve around each other and nothing else. What supposedly start's out as a great loving relationship, end's in deep tragedy with the love experienced between China and Jeremy becoming nothing more then a shadow of it's former glory. One of the moment's in the story come's in the form of imagery during the camping scene:

"What else? The rain, of course. It came midway through the third day, clouds the color of iron fillings, the lake hammered to iron, too, and the storm that crashed through the trees and beat at their tent with a thousand angry fists."

During this unforgettable week there was to be nothing but sunshine yet the rain came through and shattered the sunshine. This scene in many way's imitates what happened to China and Jeremy's relationship as they suddenly got swept into this unplanned path with the pregnancy and the media attention and the public bashing's they received during the trial.

Throughout the story, the love they have for each other is mentioned repeatedly yet by the end and particularly when Jeremy throw's away the baby they both made while making love, it has to be asked if the love they had was as strong as they lead themselves to believe. Despite their agreement about being always safe with sex they still proceed to do it with no thought for the consequences and afterward's in every way act very selfish. By essentially throwing away the baby as Jeremy so easily did, they threw out their "love" and failed to weather the storm together. It is also interesting how Boyle opened this story be calling them a pair of sock's because a pair will always be together until eventually one sock becomes lost and in a pair of sock's there can never be a third.

Question's:
1. What do you think was the problem with Jeremy and China?
2.At the very end of the story, can it be said that China really does still love Jeremy?
3.Why are they in particular trying to prosecute Jeremy and willing to let China off the hook?

More than moon… and That Was Love - The Love of My Life

In T.C. Boyle’s, “The Love of My Life”, China and Jeremy’s love consists of a matter-of-fact statement written in speech form.

When the narrator says, “Five days. And it wasn’t going to rain, not a drop. He didn’t even bring his fishing rod, and that was love.”

This phrase defines love as something that exists when individuals are united. The idea was, when these people are together, nothing else matters. However, after their unprotected sexual encounter, Jeremy and China had to part ways.

The Moment: The moment when Jeremy and China must part ways to go to different schools and she reads him, “A Valediction of Weeping.”

“More than moon, that was it, lovers parting and their tears swelling like the ocean til the girl—the woman—the female—had more power to raise the tides than the moon itself, or some such. More than moon. That’s what he called her after that, because she was white and round and getting rounder, and it was no joke, and it was no term of endearment.

She was pregnant.”

In the poem they talk about a girl who is impregnated with tears from her lover, which John Donne describes as, “Fruit of much grief,” due to their farewell. In this short story, T.C. Boyle uses this poem as a way to show how separation can change the love between two people. Being pregnant draws them apart even more than their physical separation. At the end of the story, all she can remember is the time when they were camping together, and all he can remember is the way she looked when she was giving birth. Perhaps Jeremy killed their child to save their love. He rationalized that he was doing the world a favor, but by the end of the ordeal and incarceration he could hardly remember what “his love” (China) looked like.

Question: If this story is a commentary on the effects separation can have on love, do you believe that love can exist in the absence of physical and/or emotional togetherness?

Stay. Sit. Good girl, Nisha.

"A woman of color does not clean house, that was what her mother always told her, and it had become a kind of mantra when she was growing up, a way of reinforcing core values, of promoting education and the life of the mind, but she couldn't help wondering how much higher a dog-sitter was on the socioeconomic scale than a maid." (Boyle, 2)

T.C. Boyle's short story "Admiral" proves to be study of class and socio-economic status, utilizing Nisha as a contrast to the harsh and standoffish nature of the Strikers. Boyle creates the stereotypical, flaunting, self-interested rich class of people in the Strikers, portraying the neglect and lack of interest they have towards Nisha, emphasizing their pure interest in her services with Admiral. Nisha's mother consistently raised her with the indoctrinated idea of societal structure and job applicability for an independent, class-conscious, African American woman. Her mother detests second rate jobs, and instills the drive in Nisha to succeed, to further her education, to progress her place in society. She even convinces herself that the job is temporary, but when faced with the downtrodden state of her mother, she finds the necessity to continue with the opportunity. In reality, her mother would detest the job, seeing it as an inferior position, not worthy of her. She realizes her true worth over the course of the story. After Nisha starts her trials with Admiral, "She'd had the acceptance letter in her hand to show her, thinking how proud of her Mrs. Striker would be, how she'd take her in her arms, for a hug and congratulate her, but the first thing she'd said was What about Admiral?" (Boyle, 5) From the start, we see the difference in attitude, as the Strikers purely use Nisha Admiral's sake, uninterested in her worth and success. In essence, the Strikers buy Nisha just as they nought Admiral, treating her like an expendable asset, and not as a human being of equal right. Only "as the days beat on, she began to understand what her role was, her true role,"in the Striker family (Boyle, 21). She hits rock bottom, realizing her lack of success, her lack of potential, stagnant by the hands of the Strikers. She tries to rationalize her current situation, her dying mother, her current ties to the Striker family, thus realizing she must pave a new path and future for herself and Admiral. Her release of Admiral parallels her release from her shackled life with the Strikers, and subsequent lack of success and educational progress. She is free from her past, and looks forward, toward her life after this debacle. 

Discussion Question: 

Do you feel sympathy towards Nisha 's exploits or do you find her demise to be a consequence of her own actions? How would the story differ had the Strikers not foiled her plan to expose them?

Does Money = Power ?

"You really didn't read about it?" There was incredulity in the husband's voice.  "Well I - I was away at college, and then I took the first job I could find. Back here, I mean. Because of my mother. She's been sick." Neither of them commented on this, not even to be polite. (3-4)
This passage shocks me, due to my own experience as a babysitter, where I have worked for a family closely for over a year and a half. I feel apart of the family as a babysitter and in this story Nisha had previously worked for the Strikers for four years, which is a much longer time. Yet, when she tells the Strikers that her mother is sick, they don't even respond to be polite, let alone out of a human concern for anothers life. This act alone separates the Strikers from normal people, where they completely ignored her statement. They were even offended Nisha didn't read about Admirals death away at college, revealing that they believe themselves to be of more importance, because of their higher station in society.

Class plays a large role in "Admiral", because only the wealthy could go through such great lengths as the Strikers, in order to bring back their dead dog. Nisha realizes the ridiculousness of her job when she thinks, "
"Wars were being fought, people were starving, there were diseases to conquer, children to educate, good to do in the world, and here she was reliving her adolescence in the company of an inbred semi-retarded clown of a cloned Afghan hound because two childless rich people decreed it should be so," yet she still is a slave to money, letting a pay check dictate her life, revealing the power of money (11).

Everything about the Strikers lifestyle shouts indulgence, including their "his and hers" matching beemers, but at the end of the day one must ask, does money give one a ticket out of humanity and kindness? Then for those in Nisha's situation; at what point is a paycheck more important than your dignity and an excuse for not "doing good in the world?"

A Temporary Permanence

“She felt frightened suddenly, for herself, for Admiral, for the Strikers and Frankie and the whole carefully constructed edifice of getting and wanting, of supply and demand and all that it implied.” (page 14)

Nisha’s internal conflict is rooted in her inability to move forward. Despite her success of obtaining a degree, she finds herself in the exact position she strived to avoid, a position of dependence. She claims to be “temporary help” (pg.10), but it is the permanence of belonging to this identity that that leaves her restless and unsatisfied (despite the convenience of her languid and effortless occupation). The “transgressive” impulse Erhard invokes in her is a response to the idea of undermining the class restraints she had failed to dispel initially by attending college. However, this “hope” (pg.17) of liberation soon regresses to a “hopeless state of despair” (pg.19) as she realizes it is the very construction of class and wealth she is attempting to destabilize that is providing the only element of stability in her life. Despite ideals and morals, Admiral, the living icon of wealth, “remains supreme” (pg. 20) and Nisha is forced to reconcile the reality of her situation and the difficulty of overcoming it. Just like Admiral, she longs to eliminate the restrictions of those who control her life and run free where she “really wanted to be” (pg.21), but the challenge and independence this presents seems to scare her. The question then arises; Is Nisha at fault for her position, or are the circumstances of her life and class superiority to blame? And should the reader see her as a victim, or a product of her own idleness?

A Price on Happiness

"The afternoon before, during her interview - but it wasn't really an interview because the Strikers had already made up their minds, and if she'd refused them they would have kept raising the hourly till she capitulated - the two of them, Gretchen and Cliff, had positioned themselves on either side of her and leaned into the bar over caramel-colored Scotches and a platter of ebi and marguro sushi to explain the situation" (6).

            The Strikers, a power couple willing to put a high price on happiness, are so invested in replicating the past that they are willing to handsomely pay their ex-employee twenty-five an hour plus benefits for four years of her time. While Nisha, a college grad, wishes to escape the small town, she agrees to take the job. The Strikers are so obsessed with re-creating the past that they pay a large sum of money to keep Nisha in town, primarily for their benefit. The Strikers essentially pay for four years of Nisha's life without any regard for her personal hardships at home, her ability to establish a career for herself, or the fact that she is now an adult woman. The Strikers' obsessive concern for Admiral II's well-being keeps them from cultivating emotional ties with their employees and seemingly even with each other. Their vision of perfecting the past is thought to be made possible by their extreme wealth, however that money does not seem to provide the control they seek, therefore their happiness is unattainable.

How else does Boyle demonstrate the Striker's need for control?

"...Not with a bang but with a whimper."

In T.C. Boye's "Admiral," recent college graduate Nisha reprises her role as dog-sitter to the Strikers, two childless lawyers that request her services again after their Afghan hound Admiral dies and is cloned into a puppy. Her task is to nurture this new dog the same way she did the old one so that he can mature into an exact replica of his namesake. Throughout the story, Nisha confronts an internal malaise that seems to have set in since she left college and returned home to care for her sick mother. This new reality sharply contrasts her days with the old Admiral when "thoughts of clothes and boys and the occasional term paper" were the only concerns (Boyle 8). However upon meeting the new house maid Frankie and journalist Erhard, who effectively appeals to "her sense of rebellion," she momentarily restores some of her former vigor (Boyle 15). Falling in love with Erhard, she takes part in his plan to replace the cloned Admiral with another hound. But when it fails after Mrs. Striker arrives home and recognizes the impostor, Nisha's newly cultivated youth is instantly destroyed. Succumbing to the same bitterness that had been acquired by other adults as they aged, she accepts her reality.

"Yes, she was living in the past and her mother was dying and she'd gone to college for nothing..." (Boyle 21)

Though Boyle's statement ends on an optimistic note as it indicates that Nisha wants to forge a better future, that doesn't necessarily mean that the particular status quo pervading her present life will change or shift significantly. What this moment of submission in Boyle's tale does is consolidate the current milieu that young college graduates inhabit. Costly loans, sick parents, and a turbulent job market have become modern conventions and their impacts longstanding. Even the final confrontation between Mrs. Striker and Erhard is so anti-climactic that it most likely didn't give Nisha the moment of rebellion she so desired. These experiences and obstacles typify the disposition of the emerging middle and lower classes that live today. Many of the once ambitious youths who dreamed to be the doctors, lawyers, and politicians of tomorrow must return home not having accomplished their goals. And because they can't afford to get their stories out to USA Today or Good Morning America, Boyle informs the reader of the tension and dissatisfaction that remains pervasive in their lives.

What other aspects of the emerging and/or permanent members of the middle class does Boyle's story explore?

Suspended Animation

"It felt strange punching in the code at the gate and seeing how things were different and the same, how the trees had grown but the flowerbeds remained in a state of suspended animation, everything in perpetual bloom and clipped to within a millimeter of perfection. The gardeners saw to that. A whole battalion of them that swarmed over the place twice a week with their blowers and edgers and trimmers, at war with the weeds, the insects, the gophers and ground squirrels, and the very tendency of the display plants to want to grow outside the box."

This passage is written in tightly clipped and regimented language, mirroring the grounds it describes. Keeping this kind of garden is symptomatic of the kind of people who keep it, the Strikers, and is in fact an introduction to their characters. They wish to keep everything, including their pet, in a "state of suspended animation." Throughout the story there are multiple references to this resistance to change. Frankie, the "young woman in the demeaning and stereotypical maid costume" even articulates this theme when she says of Nisha and herself, "We're the temps. And Mr. and Mrs. Striker- dog crazy, plain crazy, two hundred and fifty thousand dollar crazy- they're permanent." Of course, this permanence is only a fragile construct, highly artificial and utterly dependent on their wealth to maintain it. Even Admiral, their child-substitute, has been artificially constructed, body, mind, and memory. The sheer, extreme absurdity of living this way is clearly highlighted.

If TC Boyle is trying to make a point about the unhealthy nature of having so much money that you have essentially no limitations, because the Strikers freakishly maintained homeostasis is certainly facilitated by their wealth, why wouldn't he just let Erhard be right about them? How does Mrs. Striker's obvious affection for Admiral betray an even deeper sickness?

Playing God

"His contention was that the Strikers would never know the difference, that they were arrogant exemplars of bourgeois excess, even to the point of violating the laws of nature -- and God, God too -- simply to satisfy their own solipsistic desires" (18).

Erhard is classified by Nisha as "one of 'these animal people,'" (14) basically an animal rights activist who believes that what the Strikers have done with Admiral is morally wrong, against nature and against God. Through Erhard we see the many assumptions that are made about the Strikers' class. Although Erhard believes that the Strikers would be ignorant and not be able to tell their dog from another, Mrs. Striker is able to. She is not ignorant, but cognizant of her dog who seems to be the only thing that matters. The Strikers appear to be two very rich, smug people. Their egotistical pride and wealth allow them to believe that they stand apart from the world. They believe that they are better, so much so that they can bend the rules of nature to their own whims and fancies. They do not adhere to the natural laws of death in the world, but believe that they can create their own way of life, playing the role of God. In Erhard's eyes, the Strikers are seen as presumptuous and full of themselves. Putting one's self above God presupposes the idea that there is no limit to power, no limit to anything, really. Their class is defined not only by their excessive wealth but by their upheld idea that they can do whatever they want despite any repercussions. The Strikers willingly defy the natural order of things simply because they can. Not only that, Erhard calls their desires "solipsistic," meaning that the Strikers believe that their own mind is perceived to exist, not denying the existence of other minds, but not acknowledging them either. The Strikers have a surplus of money to spend on recreating the past and live in a way in which the standard rules are not applicable.

Is the Strikers' lifestyle a consequence of their arrogance? Why are the Strikers portrayed to have no limits in this story?

Money- the admiral of life

"And do you know why they clone the Afghan hound," he went on, ignoring her, " the very stupidest of all the dogs on this earth? You don't? Breeding, that is why. This is what they call an uncomplicated genetic line, a pure line all the way back to the wolf ancestor. Breeding," he said, and he'd raised his voice so that Admiral looked up at the vehemence of it, " so that we can have this purity, this stupid hound, this replica of nature." (p.14)

In this story, a very wealthy couple pay a considerable amount of money to replicate their deceased dog and its upbringings. By cloning the animal and hiring Nisha, the Strikers wish to go back in time and repeat the past. As Erhard comes into the picture, he makes Nisha question the Strikers' motives and approach to the untimely death of their original dog. This then brings up the question of social class. The Strikers and Nisha are undoubtedly in different social classes. The differences between the two is represented through this quote, and more so through Admiral . The Strikers go out of their way just to specifically clone their dog, though they could have just paid a significantly smaller amount just to get a new Afghan. But no, the Strikers had to get their exact dog, just to preserve the reputation of the dog, and maybe to preserve the reputation of themselves. Breeding and purity of the hound serves to keep out any external genes, any external others which could taint their name. The "replica of nature" is just that, a shadow of the natural world as humans try to conquer the earth with their artificial actions to keep those with power on top.  As Nisha tries to change this with Erhard, in the end she realizes that her tries are fruitless. Nisha goes back to making sure that the clone ends up exactly like his original, even if it leads to his death.

Does the breeding of a dog, specifically this dog which is supposedly the dumbest, represent the class system of America? Does this dog, with its faults and imperfections, show how the rich want to continue their conditions, even if it means repeating their mistakes and going against nature?