Sam
Cimino
Mr.
Hamilton
AP
Literature 6th hour
7
November 2014
A Certain Lady by Dorothy Parker
Biography
on Dorothy Parker: Dorothy Parker’s
biting wit made her a legend, but it also masked her lonely struggle with
depression. A member of the Algonquin Round Table group of writers, she wrote
criticism for Vogue, Vanity Fair, and later the New Yorker. During the 1930s
Parker moved to Hollywood, where she worked on such films as A Star Is Born,
for which she won an Academy Award.
The
Speaker: Poems are personal. The
thoughts and feelings they express belong to a specific person, and however
general or universal their sentiments seem to be, poems come to us as the
expression of an individual human voice. That voice is often the voice of the
poet, but not always. Poets sometimes create “characters” just as writers of
fiction or drama do – people who speak for them only indirectly. A character
may, in fact, be very different from the poet, just as a character in a play or
story is not necessarily the author, and that person, the speaker of the poem,
may express ideas or feelings very different from the poet’s own. In the
following poem, “A Certain Lady” by Dorothy Parker, we do not get a full sense
of the speaker until well into the poem:
Oh,
I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And
drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And
paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And
trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When
you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh,
I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And
you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The
thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And
you believe, so well I know my part,
That
I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And
all the straining things within my heart
You'll
never know.
Oh,
I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And
you bring tales of fresh adventurings, --
Of
ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of
lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And
you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To
sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus
do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true,
Nor
do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And
when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh,
I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And
what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll
never know.
Analysis: I believe that we can infer that the speaker in this
poem is a woman. This woman is a symbol for many woman who are in tumultuous relationships
with men that behave like dogs. This poem touches on the multitude of emotions
that a woman goes through while she listens to the man she loves talk about his
exploits with other women.
Men
are blind. They are oblivious to the body language or the subtle hints that
women leave for them. Dorothy Parker touches on this fact in this poem. Despite
his inability to see her love and unwillingness to stay with any one woman, the
lady is still in love with him. This can be seen from the last few lines where
she wishes she could kiss him goodbye, even as he goes in search for other
women.
Furthermore,
the woman comes across as helpless as she tries to convey her feelings towards
the man she loves. She tries everything to lure him into loving her again but
she is fighting a losing battle, because the love is unrequited. He is in love
with the chase and therefore the man is unable to see it, or maybe he refuses
to see it. He is happy being a player, and is also content with driving the
knife deeper into the wound of the speaker’s heart by telling the tale of his infidelity.
He has failed in finding true love because he cannot recognize love even if it
literally stares him in the eyes and that is the icing on the cake of this
tragic “love” story.
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