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.
Wow! How sad! It's a shame that these kind of stories actually happen in real life too. :( Sometimes, people have such low self esteems that they don't know how to take care of themselves, even people who most others find "beautiful" suffer from this.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sad story. This is the kind of story that is sad around the 20's when it was written and today. Some people just make poor choices and don't know how to get their life back on track. Is this the only story that Dorothy Parker possibly have based her own life experiences on?
ReplyDeleteWhat is truly both great and horrific about this story is the truth behind it. So many people make a mistake with who they choose to get involved with and it ends up leading to even worse decisions like drinking and drug addictions to cope with their mistakes. It's too bad that it couldn't have an uplifting ending to it where she did get her life back on track, but then again, some people never do get their lives back on track so it is realistic.
ReplyDeleteThe story starts anew? What a terrible-sounding story. I'm willing to bet it's a good read, but that's just really tragic. Nice summary though. Can't decide if I want to read it or not...
ReplyDeleteWoah thats a lot to take in from one short story. I could also see this story becoming a novel, it could have so much potential to be longer and more in depth especially if someone like Parker is writing it. This was a chilling and intriguing post and to read from the first few sentences. Good read:)
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