Dorothy Parker Poem Analysis

Dorothy Parker: The Challenges of Life and Love

When sorting through the Poems of Dorothy Parker you will seldom find a poem tha¬t you could describe as uplifting or cheerful. She speaks with a voice that doesn’t romanticize reality and some may even call her as pessimistic. Though she doesn’t have a buoyant writing style, I can empathize with her views on the challenges of life and love. We have all had experiences where a first bad impression can change how we view an opportunity to do the same thing again. Parker mostly writes in a satirical or sarcastic tone, which can be very entertaining to read and analyze. It is apparent in Parker’s poems that she has had plenty of damaging experiences, and she has turned these into her life’s …show more content…

With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?” (Kirszner, Mandell 907) She depicts men in a blunt way, and although not all men are like this it does not make it untrue in the slightest. This poem has a very nonchalant tone in the sense that I don’t think Parker cared if this offended anyone. This poem illustrates her use of satire perfectly. She mocks an entire gender without batting an eye, knowing she is bound to irk someone, which I find to be pretty humorous. Another of Parker’s poems “News Item”, only two lines long, reads, “Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses.”(Kirszner, Mandell 837). When Parker says “glasses” she doesn’t necessarily mean that all women who wear glasses aren’t appealing to men. She is referring to a studious or bookworm personality as opposed to an outgoing and flirty personality that most men are drawn to. Parker’s satirical writing style allows her to inject a lot of humor into the poems she wrote; when she was challenged with an in her life she tended to voice herself through her …show more content…

She does not hint as to whose dream it is, or what the dream is. This being said the dream could be applied to just about anyone experiencing these same feelings. This is what is so magical about Parker’s poems; they are abundantly relatable. She tells the reader to let go once the dream has died, and in the fourth and fifth lines Parker writes, “Walk not in woe, But, for a little, let your step be slow.” (Poemhunter). In these lines she is telling the reader to not become saddened over the death of their dream, however they should not immediately dispose of that dream and move slowly when forgetting their former dream. She goes on to say in lines six-eight, “be not sweetly wise With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies. A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:”(Poemhunter). In these lines Parker warns the reader to not become too foolish with their hope, because their dream is still dead. If you were searching for help with this challenge in your life and read this poem, it may either help you move on or result in an ever more depressed state of mind. The way Parker writes her poetry is very personal which gives her writing style so much more emotion and