Conflict- Algorithms for Love

I’d like you to take a character that you’re interested in from this week’s reading and look at him/her/it in terms of our classroom definition of conflict. Questions that may be useful to you to think about as you write: What does s/he/it desire? What blocks that desire or prevents him/her/it from achieving that desire? How does that blocked desire make the plot of the story go? What’s the resolution? Why are you drawn to this conflict/character?

This week we read Frankenstein and The Algorithms for Love. Of the two stories, I liked Algorithms for Love the most. It really made me think and wonder, as well as attempt to relate it to today, what with all crazy technology coming out every year. The character from The Algorithms for Love that I want to look at in terms of our classroom definition of conflict is Elena. In the beginning Elena desired to create an amazing, intelligent doll, which she accomplished. Elena's doll, Clever Laura, was so popular the company could not keep up with the orders. As the story progresses, her doll creations become better and more advanced, she marries Brad, and her next desire is for a baby of her own, with Brad. The story never really elaborates on what was wrong with their baby, but their baby Aimee only lived for ninety-one days in intensive care. Therefore, Aimee's death prevented Elena from having what she desired most. The entire story is a result of what the loss of Aimee did to Elena. Elena completely lost it and wanted to create a robot child to help her, and mothers all over that lost their children cope. This began to destroy her marriage, and eventually her career. Her most remarkable creation, Tara, who looked like a five-year-old, was so human-like that Brad did not realize it was not a real child until Elena told him. Elena's entire mind was consumed with the idea that she was no different than robots and that there is an algorithm for everything in life, when in reality, she was just over-analyzing. One day she could not take it any longer and she destroyed Tara with a hammer. The story was not in chronological order, and began with Brad checking her out of a mental hospital. I did not really have a clear picture of everything that happened until the end of the story. Apparently Elena had attempted to commit suicide and Brad had her committed into the hospital. The story ends with Elena committing suicide again and leaves it to the reader's imagination as to whether she was successful or not. I was drawn to this conflict because I felt that it was very relevant to today. There are so many intelligent computers coming out that are more and more like a human brain. It is bizarre imagine but I think one day soon these types of conflicts will be more and more common.

As a side note, until we discussed the end of the story in class I had never thought about the possibility of Elena being dead in the last scene of the story and the doll picking up her sound waves. I thought that was really interesting and it totally changed the impression the story left on me when I thought of that possible ending. :D