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.