Department of Education

Philippine College of Criminology

Sales St. Quiapo, Manila Metro Manila

Theme Paper: Love is a Fallacy

Submitted by: Kevin C. Aribuabo

Submitted to: Promitivo Moscarre

 Title:

"Love is a Fallacy" is a fun short story where the author teaches basic principles of

fallacies in an entertaining way. There are three main characters, the narrator, Petey

Burch and Polly Espy. The three main characters study in the same university, also the

narrator and Petey Burch are roommates and Petey and Polly share the love

relationship. The narrator is a self-called cool, logic, keen, calculating, perspicacious,

acute and astute student, while Petey tends to be much more interested in craze,

especially in the clothing. One day, Petey Burch resigned to exchange the narrator's

raccoon coat with his girlfriend Polly. Satisfying the needs of both of them, the deal had

been made. For a few days, and by some small tests, the narrator found that Polly was

really an unintelligent girl. To make her logic and intelligent according to his standards,

the narrator began to teach her logic. When the narrator realized that Polly has really

become logical, the narrator decided to propose to her. Unexpectedly, Polly used all the

logic fallacies that he taught her to refute his offer. When it comes to the reason why

she refused him, she said with a logical reason, "Petey has got a raccoon coat"

(Shulman 391). In this story, the narrator seems to be the final winner while he is just

the victim. The interesting ending tells us some information, that love is not just a

fallacy.
 Characters:

Max Shulman- This is the main character who gives Peter his father´s raccoon coat and

gets Polly Espy in return. He claims that he is cool and logical with a brain powerful as a

dynamo.Throughout the text, we figured out that he is actually the one who he would

refer to as one "dumb as an ox".

Peter Bellows- or Petey is a flashy student student who is sharing room with the main

character, max. peter wants to follow the stream and fit it, therefore, he wants a

raccoon coat which he can’t afford so he is making a deal with max which coast him his

date, Polly Espy.

Polly Espy- Polly Espy is beautiful and gracious, gut he intelligence is missing. This is

something Max is willing to give a try to change. He learns Polly all about logical

thinking and different fallacities.

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