Final Thoughts on Dorothy Parker

I can't believe this is my Last Dorothy Parker post! Its been a good literary adventure. I am happy I picked her as my author study.

Ms. Parker ended up being more fascinating than I originally thought. She had the wit I had expected, but she was a tragic figure too. Her stories rarely had happy endings, but that's life. Her life was sadder than I thought it was and her stories reflect that. I believe that she was a lonely woman and writing was an outlet for her. Her marriages were troubled and she never had any children. Her writing was the companion that we all need in our lives.

Her works are very feminist, but in an usual way. Her female protagonists tend to be weak and surround themselves with bad men. Only a few are strong on their own. Parker is empowering in her unique way because she chose to write about dark subjects that were swept under rug during her time. She points out the issues and they become warnings to her readers.

 I wish I could have met her. I think we would have had a good conversation. (I'd tell her that Guys do make Passes at girls who wear glasses :) I'm sad our blogging relationship is over, But I promise Dorothy I'll be reading you again soon! <3

Poetry

I finally got my hands on a few Dorothy Parker poems. Honestly I am not that impressed. After reading her short stories, her poems seem very generic. They are an OK read. I think this class has spoiled me with poetry. I'll review three of them today.

A Dream Lies Dead
The title gives away what the story is about. The narrator is saying that a dream of her died and she's warning people to stay away from its grave. The words were fun though. Fecundity. I never heard that word before. It means the ability to reproduce. The narrator cannot reproduce her dream.

Alexandre Dumas and his son
 This one made me laugh. Its a short poem that says that Parker is a busy woman and she cannot care for the works of Alexandre Dumas or his son, even though she tries to read them. This sounds more like something Dorothy Parker would say.

A Fairly Sad Tail
Poor Dorothy. She is talking about being left by men, who put her off with stories of their parents and their jobs. The best line is about her heart being a mosaic. That was good imagery.

I'll find some more for next week!

oh and it turn out that Dorothy Parker was the one that said "Men rarely make passes at girls who wear glasses."
I hate that phrase. Don't be hating on my glasses Lady/

Horsie Time

Hello everyone!

            Today I will be looking at one of Dorothy Parker’s strangest stories, “Horsie.” It is about (to be perfectly frank) a woman who looks like a horse. Now while you are laughing at this image, let me explain.

            “Horsie” is actually a completely human woman named Miss Wilmarth. She has the “pleasure” of being the nanny to an infant rich girl.  The little girl’s parents spend the story making fun of their Nanny’s appearance.  They make jokes about her long face and horse like qualities the whole time she works for them. They never make them to her face however. Miss Wilmarth is shown to be a loving and kind person, who has no idea that she is getting made fun of. She is sort of a sad character in the way that no one appreciates her, and she spends her life being a proverbial doormat. The story ends when the Mother is well enough to care for her baby  and Miss Wilmarth leaves. She gets a flower in thanks from the father and she is happy about feeling worthy enough to get one.

This story is a weird one. It does not have a real point to it. But after reading all the depressing stuff that Parker wrote, it’s a nice break. If you’re bored and want to read something entertaining check it out.

Big Blonde

     Big Blonde is the one of the longer stories in my Dorothy Parker Collection. Its a tragic tale of a woman's descent into a bad marriage, alcoholism, and a suicide attempt. During my first read though of Parker's Bio, it said that she had she had struggled with drinking and depression. I think her story Big Blonde is her exploration of her own feelings about her bad marriage and her sense of self worth.
 Big Blonde is the story of Hazel Morse. Hazel is a young woman who is busty and Blonde earning her the name "Big Blonde." Hazel is popular with the men, and makes the poor choice of marrying a man who a fun drunk. Their marriage falls apart quickly and Hazel spends her days waiting for it to get better. She learns to drink and spends the next few years living in a scotch induced blur. Her husband leaves her and she becomes the mistress of a rich man. (He's from my Home City of Utica!) After the man leaves her she becomes the mistress of several other men. Hazel then starts thinking of killing herself and buys sleeping pill. She ODs on them, but they only knock her out. Her maid finds her and then she gets her stomach pumped. The story ends with her asking her maid for a drink and the cycle beings a new.
This is one of Parker's better stories. You get a real feeling of helplessness from Hazel and grief that her life will never be better.

Sylvia Plath's Drawings

I know this isn't about Dorothy Parker, But you all really should check them out. Plath's artwork is very pretty. Sylvia Plath's Artwork

The Dorothy Parker Society.

The Dorothy Parker Society

Check it out! its a cool website filled with galleries and a description of a thing called Parkerfest! A party all about Dorothy Parker. It looks really interesting.

Dorothy Parker: The Movie!

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle

No big essay this week! I have too much to write already! But this film looks like they did a good job presenting Dorothy Parker properly! I might watch it sometime soon!

Lady With a Lamp

                Of all the Dorothy Parker stories I’ve read, “Lady with a Lamp” has had the biggest impact on me.  In my humble opinion this is her finest and most provocative work. This short story deals with a subject that people still don’t like to talk about today and it amazes me that Dorothy Parker wrote about it in the 1920’s.

                It’s about Abortion.

                As I have said in my previous posts, Parker herself had at least one abortion. She is quoted as saying “Don’t put all your eggs in one bastard.” It doesn’t surprise me one bit that she used that experience for a story, as the old saying goes “write what you know.” But I am surprised that she was able to write about it in the 20’s, abortion was not even legal!

                “Lady with a Lamp” is one of Parker’s short stories that is only dialogue. The story is not told from the perspective of the woman who had the abortion. The dialogue is everything that her best friend is saying to her. The story is not outright in saying that she had an abortion, it is very subtle.

                The story begins with the nameless narrator visiting her friend Mona who has been bedridden for ten days.  I would describe the narrator as a frienemy. She does not care that her friend has gone through a traumatic experience. She only wants the latest gossip from Mona. The narrator goes on to do more damage to her friend over the next few pages. The narrator knows that her friend had the procedure done, but still tells her how a woman should live her life, marrying a good man and having babies. Mona had been in a long term relationship with her boyfriend who has abandoned her. The narrator, thinking that she is doing her friend a favor, tells Mona that she saw Gerry with another woman at a club. Mona cries, and the Narrator tries to calm her down.

                When I was reading this the first time I thought that Mona was just an unmarried pregnant woman. That’s pretty scandalous for the 20’s. But when the Narrator started talking about doctors, I had a suspicion that Mona had been pregnant.  When the Narrator said, “I know you’ve always talked about how much you’d give to have a baby, but it would have been so terribly unfair to the child to bring it into the world without being married…You did the only possible thing,” I knew that this story was about abortion.  Mona then goes on to have a complete melt down and the story ends with the narrator calling for her maid.

                Personally my heart aches for Mona. Parker made it clear that she did not want to have the abortion. She had it because society demanded that she be a married woman to be a mother.  I wish that she was living today. I’m glad the sigma is mostly gone from being a single mother. But for poor Mona it would have been incredibly hard.

                Abortion, in my own personal opinion (You don’t have to agree with me) should be legal. It is not a choice that I would choose for myself, but the important thing is that it’s my choice to keep any pregnancies I may have. And whether or not a woman chooses to keep or abort a pregnancy is her choice alone. “Lady with a Lamp” is about how society chose for a woman to make the hardest decision of her life, when it should have been her own decision.

Writing and Me

Now if you don’t all mind, I will go off on a little tangent about myself.  I want to become a writer. Technically I am one now, but I would like to be able to make a modest living doing it. I have whole worlds trapped in my head and I want more than anything to share them with readers. I know that publishing a book is a long way away, but I write when and what I can. I like writing about pop culture too.  I currently write reviews of bad movies for our school newspaper, The Chronicle. It’s great fun and it is good practice for finding work as a writer for a newspaper or a magazine.

The reason why I’m writing this little rant is because a “Friend” made me feel as though what I do for the Chronicle is worthless.  She said that I should not be writing about bad movies that have been out for a while, and that I should write about recent films. She said what is the point of writing criticism of these movies? I am not encouraging my readers to see them, and I am only telling them negative things.  The Coup de gras of this conversation is that she said I am not teaching my readers anything.

  I am not a journalist, I am a Columnist.  I don’t write to inform people facts. I write about opinions and my goal is to entertain my readers and hopefully make them think of something they have not before. I write my column for The Chronicle because I want to. I live to write and write to live. I have no preconceived notions about my writing. I highly doubt I will write the next Great American Novel.  But to have a person tell me that they liked my review or story is the greatest validation I can feel as writer. My “Friend” may think that she was being Clever by challenging my style, but it’s damn irritating to pick on a person's passion.

Why on Earth do I write about bad movies you may ask? I write about them because I believe that I can poke fun at them to make readers laugh. Through these reviews, I am learning to find my voice as a writer. I don’t want to write about dull things, and shoddy attempts at good films are certainly not dull.

 Now this experience has not made me want to give my chosen craft. Not in the slightest! It has filled me with a new passion for my career. I will prove my critic “Friend” wrong with my writing. She may have snipped at me today, but I am doing what I love and I wonder if she will be as lucky as I am.  This incident makes me understand why Dorothy Parker felt like what she did was not good enough. Cheer, up Dorothy! We don’t all have to become Doctors and Lawyers and teachers. We can still contribute to the world in our little ways by helping people escape their troubles and make them laugh, even if it is only temporary.

The Paris Review's Interview with Dorothy Parker

The Interview

Wow. After reading this I got a whole new perspective on Dorothy Parker. She comes across as very humble, but sad. She never thought much of herself as a writer or wit. I liked reading about her life as she told it. I felt more connected to her than before. It made me smile when she said that she liked to read the Sherlock Holmes stories. I love them too.

I think its funny that she names her characters based on what she finds in the obits and phone books. I myself use Babynames.com.

This interview gives us insight into her writing process. She says that her stories take six months to write! I was amazed. Her stories are very short and I thought she would be writing one a week! She says that she struggles to find the right words and end up changing them. She must have had a very well thumbed thesaurus. I am glad I'm writing in the internet age!

Next week I will be writing a longer review of her short story "Lady With a Lamp." It deals with a subject that we don't like to talk about even today.

A review of three Dorothy Parker Short Stories!

The first Dorothy Parker book I could get my hands on was her collection called Laments for the Living.  I have enjoyed them more than I thought I would. There is a definite style to her stories. They are either all or mostly dialogue, or full of description about the setting. These stories have given me an idea about her perspective on life. Relationships are portrayed negatively and women are weak and foolish.

                The first story I read was called “Arrangement in Black and White”. This story is written in her style of being mostly dialogue.  It’s a nameless woman at a party babbling to her host about wanting to meet this well know black musician named Walter Williams. The woman goes on to describe about how she is not a racist person, unlike her husband and likes black people. The strength of this story comes from that fact that through her dialogue the woman proves that she has all the racist notions about black people as her husband does, she is just polite about it.

                The next story is called “The Sexes.” It is similar to a later story in the collection. It is the conversation between a couple that eventually becomes an argument.  As I said earlier relationship issues are a theme that Parker spends a lot of time discussing. The dialogue in this story gradually builds from a man and a woman having an argument to a full blown fight. The woman accuses her boyfriend of wanting to see another woman. He tries to calm her down to no avail. The woman herself is flighty and silly. The ending is ambiguous. I think it ends with him beating her.  Parker had troubled marriages and relationships, so it would not surprise me it she was beaten too.

                The third story is my favorite. It is called “The Wonderful Old Gentleman.” It is a perfect combination of Parker’s use of imagery and dialogue. It begins with a description of a room.  It made me feel like I was really there.  The room is described as trying to be elegant, but ends up looking like “a home chamber of horror, modified for family use.” The wonderful old gentleman has moved in with a married couple, the Bains and lives as a tenant. It is revealed that he is Mrs. Bains’ father. He has moved in with his daughter, due to his health.  He is suffering from what has to dementia or Alzheimer’s.  The main plot of the story is the conversation that Mr. and Mrs. Bains have with Mrs. Bains’ wealthy sister.  The sister tries to ignore that she has left her father in the care of her poor sister and that she should have helped out more.  Mrs. Whittaker, the sister thinks that her father’s failing state of mind is funny. This story is sad, and it reaches out to me because I am seeing my Grandfather fall apart from dementia and how my mother and aunt are both trying their hardest to make sure he’s cared for.

                Dorothy Parkers stories are short and fun to read, I will be writing more reviews of her book next week. Questions are welcome! 

Its Dorothy Parker Quote Time!

I found a Video of a few of Dorothy Parker's one liners. I know she has several more that are really funny. I like the one in here about how "You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." Her quotes show that she was a satirist when it came to life and its mores.

What are your favorites from here?

All about Dorothy Parker!

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my first true blog post.  Its current purpose is to spend the semester analyzing the life and works of the infamous writer Dorothy Parker. I first heard of Dorothy Parker because she has a “cameo” in the stage musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” I was in that show and I because curious about who she was. My mother told me that she was a 20’s writer known for her wit. I knew I wanted to learn about her when I saw her on the list of authors I could write about this semester.  I am looking forward to the challenge of digging deeper in to her works.

The following information I found about her is from her Wikipedia page. Which can be found here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker#cite_note-56

Dorothy Parker was born on August 22, 1893 in New Jersey. She had an unhappy childhood. Her mother died when she was a young child and her father remarried a woman she despised and she claimed that he was abusive. She went to Catholic School until she was kicked out because of her fiery personality.  Her formal education ended when she was thirteen years old and she worked as a piano player at a dancing school and started writing.

Her career got a break in 1914 when she had one of her poems published in Vanity Fair and shortly afterward got a job writing for Vogue.  Parker then moved on and worked for Vanity Fair reviewing plays. She and several of her contemporaries created the Algonquin Round Table. They met for lunch every day and discussed various topics and several of them published the conversations they had. Parker then gained a reputation as a wit.

Parker is most famous for her short stories most of which discuss the downfalls of romance and the possible release of suicide. I found a copy of her short stories called Laments for the Living. I have not gotten far into it, but the first two I read are full of snappy dialogue and dark undertones. Along with her short stories she is known for her poetry. During her most productive period she had around 300 poems published in various magazines of the day.

Dorothy Parker‘s personal life was difficult. She was married three times, twice to the same man. All of her marriages were mostly unhappy. She had numerous affairs and aborted a pregnancy that resulted because of one. (OK guys.1920’s abortions? That pretty scary) She suffered from alcoholism and survived several suicide attempts.

Another interesting fact about Dorothy Parker is that she was a very liberal person. She was put on the Hollywood blacklist and the Red Channels claimed that she as a communist in 1950. On a lighter note she left her money to the Martin Luther King Foundation and after King’s death the money went to the NAACP.

This article has given me a lot of insight into Dorothy Parker.  I will be writing a review and analysis of some of her short stories next week.  Any questions or comments?

Welcome!

HI! this is Tempest in a Teapot. Now I know that the phrase actually goes "tempest in a teacup". But the goal of this blog is to let out some literary steam! 


At first the primary goal of this blog is for the English class that I am currently taking. So there will be a lot of posts about the author I have to research. Don't worry I'll put in an interesting bit or two in here.


Read on!