Theme and Character Analysis
Dagoberto Gilb’s story Love in L.A is an indication of how love in the modern society is considered. The story presents an ironic scenario of love in the modern society. Traditionally, two strangers would meet and after a short time of interaction, the strangers would fall in love and start living a happy life that is full of genuine love.
Love in L.A presents a scenario in the modern society where love is taken for granted. Gilbs presents lack of realism in modern romantic relationships where men consider women ignorance as an opportunity to express their short time love. The realism in the story is expressed by the way the author argued that it is difficult to find a handsome man who is riding on a white horse (Dagoberto, 42).
According to the story, most modern men are dishonest and play boys and therefore meeting a genuine lover is rather a hard dream in L.A. One such person presented in the story is the main character whose name is Jake. Gilds described this character as a man who would do anything in order to impress women who come about his way. Such kind of a character is therefore available to express romance to any woman without any love falling between him and a woman. Gilbs continuously portrayed this character as playboy thought the story by the way the character perceives life. For instance, the dream car of this character is an indicator of what kind of a person he is.
According to Dagoberto, he needed an FM stereo in something better than this ’58 Buick he drove. It would have crushed velvet interior with electric controls for the L.A. summer, a nice warm heater and defroster for the winter drives at the beach, a cruise control for those long trips, mellow speakers front and rear of course, windows that hum closed, snuffing out that nasty exterior noise of freeways.
The fact was that he’d probably have to change his whole style (34). The features of Jake’s dream car are definitely the kind of features that draw the attention of women. During one of the incidences, Jake was driving on the freeways and as usual his dream of having a better life disturbed him to the extent that he hit a car ahead of him. Jake planned of driving off but upon realizing that the owner of the car was a lady by the name Mariana, he decided to face her in a romantic manner. The author portrayed this character as a self confident character by the way he hoped that the unexpected meeting with a lady would help him fulfill he sexual desires.
Gilbs described several sexual images used by Jake to show how he really wanted a woman. In addition, Gilbs presented Jake as a womanizer by the way he ran so fast to rescue Mariana by picking her up and consoling her politely.
Jake engaged Marian in a long conversation to know her better. In addition to knowing Mariana personally, Jake also hoped to get her mobile phone number. Once he was asked about his driving license, he used the opportunity to praise himself as being a musician and an actor and that he had forgotten the license at home. By the end of the conversation, Mariana had fed on Jake’s lies and had been impressed by his charming character to the extent that she agreed to shake his had as if it was her first time.
Form the story, Gilbs present women as being naïve. Gilbs portrayed that the innocence of women lead them to falling into the hands of playboys like Jake who are only there to satisfy their sexual needs.
Work Cited
Dagoberto, Gilb. Love in LA. New York: Thomson Heinle, 2002.