Love

A recurring motif in this story, as well as in many stories involving Yunior, is Yunior’s struggle to maintain consistent relationships of love and intimacy in the face of his own destructive urges and impulses; thus, the narrative and thematic thrust of this story is the emotional fallout of the destructive collision between Yunior’s personal misdeeds and his enduring love for his ex-fiancée. One of the main sources of tension in Yunior’s life, as seen in this story in others, is the bifurcation between Yunior’s desire for sex and his desire for true intimacy. However, Yunior’s relationship with his fiancée appears to be defined by a sense of profound love for her despite his own misdeeds. From Yunior’s desperate use of “every trick in the book to keep her (176), to his enduring grief over the end of his...