Dorothy Parker

& # 8217 ; s Short Stories Essay, Research Paper

Dorothy Parker & # 8217 ; s Hagiographas are connected to her life in many ways. She grew up in a clip where adult females & # 8217 ; s functions where altering in society. She spent most of her life in New York City and most of her narratives puting are of that metropolis. She was married immature and divorced in a short clip, merely as the Hazel in The Big Blonde. She was surpassing, sarcastic, and witty in a clip when adult females were supposed to be docile. This manner is shown throughout her work but peculiarly in The Waltz, where the position quo is displayed through the character & # 8217 ; s conversation and Parker & # 8217 ; s ideals are made known through the adult female & # 8217 ; s inter soliloquy. She combats a typical stereotype through mocking, in The Standard of Living. In this narrative the mean adult female is shown, as cockamamie and about material individual.

This work breaks the normality of the twenty-four hours by holding them dress a little more risqu? and being more independent. Dorothy Parker lets her sarcastic, dry, dry wit reflect a visible radiation on the interior workings of the adult female and the predicament they have with society.

The Big Blonde tells the narrative of Hazel Morse, a adult female who is trapped in metropolis civilization. The metropolis civilization is dominated by males and is isolated and uncompassionate. Set in the 1920s, the narrative Tells of how work forces fulfill their expected responsibility of keeping a day-to-day occupation while adult females are expected to be a beginning of amusement every bit good as & # 8220 ; good athleticss & # 8221 ; . Drinking to a great extent is a normal portion of society and is used largely to bury about life & # 8217 ; s sufferings. The lone & # 8220 ; responsibility & # 8221 ; for a adult female in this clip period is to happen a hubby and maintain him happy. Hazel Morse is the supporter of the narrative. She is a large breasted, bubbly, light-haired adult female who finds herself in a unstable place. She finds herself seeking to populate two lives ; the one society expects her to populate and the one she truly lives. She does non hold self-identity:

Popularity seemed to be worth all the work you had put into its accomplishment. Work force liked you because you were fun, and when they liked you they took you out, and at that place you were. So, and successfully, she was merriment. She was a good athletics. Men liked a good athletics. ( The Big Blonde )

Because she was a & # 8220 ; good athletics & # 8221 ; she marries Herbie Morse. He lacks intelligence and is really cheeky. He wants a adult females to give him self worth. He wants person to laugh at his gags and look up to him unconditionally. He married Hazel because he believes she is this type of miss. Once Hazel is married she does non set on this & # 8220 ; good athletics & # 8221 ; fa? fruit drink any longer. & # 8220 ; Wedded and relaxed, she poured her cryings freely. To her who had laughed so much, shouting was delicious. & # 8221 ; ( The Big Blonde ) Upon his find that Hazel is more than merely a large blonde, Herbie grows distant and angry. He normally comes place falling-down rummy, if he comes place at all. He finally leaves her. Hazel becomes friends with a adult female who moves into the level across the hall by the name of Mrs. Martin. She has an & # 8220 ; admirer & # 8221 ; and he frequents her level and brings his friends, & # 8220 ; the boys & # 8221 ; over on occasion. One of & # 8220 ; the boys & # 8221 ; names is Ed, and Hazel and him become close. They have a relationship. It wasn & # 8217 ; t a close 1. She doesn & # 8217 ; t believe of him when he is non about. They start to patronize an constitution called Jimmy & # 8217 ; s, where she meets work forces and adult females in the same state of affairs as her and Ed. Jimmy & # 8217 ; s is the authoritative 1920s speak-easy, a born-again cellar of a brownstone, much like the 1s Dorothy Parker herself frequented. She starts traveling to Jimmy & # 8217 ; s even when non with Ed. But merely like Herbie, Ed expected her to be in good liquors all the clip. When she could non one dark, he left her. At Jimmy & # 8217 ; s she became close with Charley, and so Sydney, Ferd, and Billy. She commented, & # 8220 ; there was ne’er another every bit rich as Ed, but they were all generous to her in their means. & # 8221 ; ( The Big Blonde ) She began to chew over decease, how to travel about it, how it would halt the hurting. Then she and Art begin dealingss. She begins to hold problem sleeping, and at Jimmy & # 8217 ; s one of the adult females tells her about kiping pills. Hazel makes a train trip to New Jersey to obtain some of the pills. After a melancholic dark at Jimmy & # 8217 ; s she goes place and takes the pills. Nettie, the amah comes in the following forenoon to happen Hazel lying about dead in her bed. A physician that lives in the edifice is called. After two yearss Hazel became witting. She was sad and ferocious. She doesn & # 8217 ; t want to be alive, and she was upset the physician keeps her that manner. Nettie tries to do her feel better, even soothe her, but in a manner she doesn & # 8217 ; t. Just like everyone else she tells Hazel, & # 8220 ; you got to hearten up tha & # 8217 ; s what you got to make. Everybody & # 8217 ; s got their troubles. & # 8221 ; ( The Big Blonde ) The Big Blonde illustrates a adult female & # 8217 ; s quest to liberate herself from the trap that society places her in. Hazel nevertheless, ever finds herself back in the same state of affairs she started in.

The Waltz is a authoritative dry Dorothy Parker narrative. A adult female who is sitting casually in a restaurant/dance nine is looking at a adult male who is dancing with another adult female. She thinks to herself how she would ne’er desire to dance with a adult male like that. How he is the absolute worst terpsichorean in the universe, and she thinks of all the things she & # 8217 ; vitamin D instead do so dance with him. Then he asks her to dance. She says she would love to, even though we know she does non desire to. She begins to depict all the things she & # 8217 ; vitamin D instead do wish, take her tonsils out, and be on a combustion boat tardily at dark on the sea. She feels obligated to dance with him. They are hotfooting about the floor. She parallels this to American life and civilization, & # 8220 ; Why can & # 8217 ; T we stay in one topographic point merely long plenty to acquire acclimated? It & # 8217 ; s the changeless haste, haste, haste, that & # 8217 ; s the expletive of American life. & # 8221 ; ( The Waltz ) She complains about her shins and how they keep acquiring kicked. When the adult male tries to apologise, she takes the incrimination on herself stating it is all her mistake. As her ideas are explained, she reveals how she would make anything to halt. She wants him dead. She is outraged at his changeless kicking. She tries to warrant it in her caput to no terminal. She sardonically remarks on how lovely the walk-in is although we, the readers, now how she genuinely feels. She goes on to sar

castically state how he should truly be her dark in clambering armour. Then he steps once more wholly on her pes. Out loud, she speaks of how she likes this small measure, and so finds out that he made it up. She complements him on it even though we know that she thinks it’s awful. The set goes on for another encore. The remarks are happy, she tells him she wishes to maintain dance. In her ideas, she explains how she is non tired, but dead. How everyone else in the topographic point is holding merriment dancing except for she, who is stuck with “Mrs. O’Leary’s cow” . But, so she realizes if they were back at the tabular array she would really hold to speak to him something she truly would non care to make either. She is past feeling in her legs. She can’t travel on any longer. She goes on to state us all the worst things that have happened in her life:

There was the clip I was in a hurricane in the West Indies, There was the twenty-four hours I got my Head cut unfastened in a cab knock, there was the dark the drunken lady threw a bronzy ash-tray at her ain true love and got me alternatively, there was that summer that the sailing boat kept turtling. Ah, what an easy peaceable clip was mine until I fell in with Swifty here. ( The Waltz )

The set stopped once more. The adult male asks her if she cares to dance some more and she says & # 8220 ; Oh that would be lovely & # 8230 ; I & # 8217 ; d merely love to travel on waltzing. & # 8221 ; ( The Waltz ) The narrative & # 8217 ; s back and forth nature between what the storyteller is believing and what she is stating is extremely amusing and sarcastic. It shows us how she feels she should move, which is polite and happy, even though she does non experience this manner. Her ideas and actions define verbal sarcasm.

The Standard of Living is about two immature adult females who go to Fifth Avenue every weekend to window store and dream. Annabel and Midge devised a game to entertain themselves while walking the avenue. The game is: & # 8220 ; what would you make if you had a million dollars? & # 8221 ; ( The Standard of Living ) This game has a proviso though ; you must pass all the money on yourself. That is what is supposed to do the game hard. As the misss window store they discuss things they wish they had for themselves. They erupt in a difference over a silver-fox coat, are they common or non common? Then, one forenoon midge asked Annabel once more and she answers & # 8220 ; a mink coat & # 8221 ; and everyone was happy. Later they went shopping and saw a brace of pearls that they adore. They got up the doggedness to travel in and ask about them. Upon happening out they would be two hundred and 50 thousand dollars, they are sad and offended that it would take up a one-fourth of the money already. Their faces are in somberness and their caputs are low. Midge all of the sudden says, & # 8220 ; Suppose there was this awfully rich individual & # 8230 ; and so this individual dies, merely like traveling to kip, and leaves you ten million dollars. Now what is the first thing you do? & # 8221 ; ( The Standard of Living ) This is a sarcastic position of how adult females are perceived to be, mercenary and junior-grade, even though there is more to them than that.

In these three short narratives plants of Dorothy Parker & # 8217 ; s, there is an apparent subject that is the nucleus of the narrative, entrapment. The narratives tell of adult females who are trapped in a unstable place because of society & # 8217 ; s criterions. Hazel in The Big Blonde is expected to be a & # 8220 ; good athletics & # 8221 ; . The adult female in The Waltz does non desire to dance with the adult male, but it would be rude of her to worsen his offer. The adult females in The Standard of Living, Annabel and Midge, act as they should to a certain point, but are besides more independent.

Hazel is a clearer image of entrapment so the remainder of the characters. She is confined to move like a & # 8220 ; good athletics & # 8221 ; . Men expect that if they pay for her to hold dinner, and give their clip to a day of the month, the least she can make is be entertaining. Her Husband, Herbie, marries her because she is a bubbly and big-breasted blonde. Once, & # 8220 ; wedded and relaxed, she poured her cryings freely. To her who had laughed so much, shouting was delicious. & # 8221 ; ( The Big Blonde ) She begins to let go of all the emotions every adult male has told her non to. She no longer had to be a & # 8220 ; good athletics & # 8221 ; because she was married. This spring of emotion drove her hubby off. Herbie & # 8217 ; s going did non upset Pomaderris apetala, his nothingness was easy to make full, and any adult male could look up to her and take attention of her. The sarcasm is Hazel & # 8217 ; s nothingness is easy filled excessively ; she is merely one of the many large blondes through out the metropolis. She is trapped. To be loved she must be what her saneness can non allow her be. The stereotype that she is supposed to be ditzy and fun all the clip is excessively much to populate up to, and the limitations drive her to try self-destruction.

The adult female in The Waltz is Parker & # 8217 ; s direct irony and rebuff at how adult female were expected to move. Using the contrast of first individual internal soliloquy and spoken conversation, Parker compares the two lives adult females lead. The life society expects them to populate and the true life they want to populate. The adult female does non desire to dance. She comes up with many grounds in her caput why she does non desire to, but she still does anyhow. The adult female so realizes that even if she declined to sit out the dance, she would most probably have to speak to him, and she does non desire to make that either. She is trapped. I doesn & # 8217 ; t count what she does she will still be suffering.

Annabel and Midge in The Standard of Living are trapped in a different manner. Parker uses this guiltless image of misss playing a game to demo how pathetic stereotypes are. They are confined to games for amusement. They have go arounding fellows and they have occupations. They are the new workingwoman but still have some of the qualities of the old fashioned theoretical account. Parker is demoing they both can be at the same clip. This is non a normally held impression in society, either you are one or the other. No affair which manner they are seen they are misperceived.

Parker uses the subject of entrapment to exemplify the parturiency of adult females in society. They don & # 8217 ; Ts have to be shallow and content, but yet they don & # 8217 ; Ts have to work a 40-hour workweek and ne’er marry. She is seeking to state that adult females can be a small of both, and uses her irony to turn out it.

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