Love in L.A.

In Gilb’s a short essay “Love in L.A”, Jake faces internal conflict and external barrier that emphasize the theme that desire can take up a lot of distress so one must overcome his own nature and make a choice between logic and emotion.

As the story begins, Jake internal conflict mirrors both the external circumstances of his life and the diction of the first paragraph. Specifically Jake experiences a gap between where he sits and where he wants to be. n traffic, he dreams of I“exoctic colognes, plush, dark nightclubs...” and other luxuries of the Hollywood lifestyles. The disconnect between Jake’s reality and his dreams of grandeur highlights the distant between his current situation and his ideal lifestyles. He wants more than his “58 buick” but doesn’t take the actions to achieves this. Further, the words like “clot”, “motionless”, “gray”, and “smog” each describe the setting of the traffic jam, but also accentuate the dreary and lackadaisical state of Jake’s internal conflict. Both his career and his car stand still despite a desire for progress.

The green light and the Toyota symbolizes Jake’s desires, and the obstacles he must overcome to achieve that. Often Jake gets distracted from dreaming about the lavish life years for, causing him to live out of the moment. When the light turns, Jake jumps into reality “ one second too late”, and forced to “[pounce] the brake pedal.” Constantly, Jake’s struggle with his desire and current situation. His life can often seem like a traffic jam, always being stuck and not going anywhere. He gets so sidetracked thinking about the “freedom” he craves, that when “he [glimpses] its green light” , he crashes again into his obstacles. If jake could live in the moment, maybe he would have the life he desires.

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