Character Analysis of Dobie Gillis in “Love Is a Fallacy”
“Love Is a Fallacy” is a story written by Max Shulman, an American writer popular in the third quarter of the 20th century. In this story the author created a successful character Dobie Gillis, which makes Shulman a distinguished writer of short stories. As the narrator of the story, Dobie firstly describes himself as an intelligent and logical person. However, the analysis of the whole story demonstrates his image more clearly and objectively. This essay focuses on the character analysis of Dobie through his language and behavior.
First, Dobie is a self-conceited person. At the beginning of the story, Dobie firstly describes himself. “Cool am I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute --- I am all of these. My brain is as powerful as a dynamo, precise as a chemist's scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And - think of it! - I am only eighteen” (Zhang, P.67). Dobie uses many commentary words to praise himself as an intelligent and smart person. However, the images of the other two characters are described in a totally different direction. Dobie doesn’t use commentary words on his roommate Petey Burch and Polly Espy whom he likes. He describes Petey Burch as a “faddist and nothing upstairs” (Zhang, P.68) and described Polly Espy as “beautiful but not smarten enough” (Zhang, P.69) who needs Dobie’s guidance. However, afterwards the girl not smarten enough refutes his proposal using the fallacies he teaches her. And the roommate “nothing upstairs” (Zhang, P.68) wins the girl’s love by a raccoon coat that Dobie scorns while the smart Dobie gets nothing. Dobie claims himself as a logical and perspicacious person, but it proves