Literary Criticism In Dorothy Parker's A Telephone Call

786 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Womens suffrage movement 1800s

“Dorothy Parker was one of the most influential women writers of her era.” (Bengstsson) When Dorothy was growing up, women’s rights was a galvanizing issue of the day. Working women went on strike for months and the suffrage movement was advocating voting rights for women. In October of 1917, thousands of women marched in a New York City suffrage parade. In June of 1919, Congress passed the 15th amendment, which (finally) granted women the right to vote. “This was the world into which Parker was born into, and from which she drew her inspiration.” (Contemporary Literary Criticism) In her male dominated world, women fell into the shadows of a restrictive society that expected them to be passive and obedient, prohibiting them from being independent. One work in which Parker advocates for women is in her short story, “A Telephone Call.” The main character of the story is a woman who is infatuated with a man. She waits in anticipation of him calling her as he has promised to do. The story follows the anxiety she faces as she waits for the call. Parker exposes obsession and gives the work a voice by revealing the deep feelings of a woman experiencing an infatuation. The language use and tone help keep a high-paced unstable feeling throughout the story. Point of view focuses on the thoughts and agitations of the crazed woman. The woman repeats the short hopeless phrase "Please, God" numerous times and usually follows it with frantic condemning or pathetic begging. The obsessive woman uses aggressive and almost violent language toward the telephone and even the man she adores. (Contemporary Literary Criticism) Confronted by society’s constraints, Dorothy Parker’s characters are forced to realize that expectations often lead to disappo... ... middle of paper ... ...her to be leaves her permanently damaged and exhausted, proven by her suicide. She never fulfilled her unconscious longings. (Contemporary Literary Criticism) “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” In Dorothy Parker's world, women were always looked at as being less. Not just less than men, less employable, less representative, less intelligent, less valuable. The mediocre expectations that society limited them to prohibited them from reaching their full potentials. In order to lead fulfilling their lives, Parker believed that women needed to be more independent .Dorothy Parker was a survivor facing many hardships throughout her life. She was one of the most troubled women you could think of, yet one of the most successful. (Bengtsson) She looked at her experiences and troubles as inspiration and channeled that energy into writing captivating stories.

Show More
Related

  • Gender Change in Early America: Carol Berkin's "Revolutionary Mothers"

    416 Words  | 1 Pages

    Before the Revolution, women were not allowed a voice in the political world. They almost had no rights, especially if they were married. They were granted fewer opportunities than men. Women were to stay at home care for the household and family. However, that soon began to change. When the Stamp Act was passed in 1765, it required colonist to pay a tax on every piece of printed-paper they used. Women refused to pay for the shipped items from the mother country, “The first political act of American women was to say ‘No’(Berkin 13). As from then, an uprising in issues began to unroll. Women began to seek their voice been heard and act out on problems that were uprising, such as the British Tea. As the war broke out, women’s lives changed even more. While men were in compact, they kept their families alive by managing the farms and businesses, something that they did not do before the war. As the fighting advanced, armies would rummage through towns, destroying homes and seizing food-leaving families with nothing. Women were attacked while their property was being stripped away from them; some women destroyed their own property to keep their family safe. “Women’s efforts to save the family resources were made more difficult by the demands of the military.

    Read More

  • Comparison of Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper

    1214 Words  | 3 Pages

    Society continually places restrictive standards on the female gender not only fifty years ago, but in today’s society as well. While many women have overcome many unfair prejudices and oppressions in the last fifty or so years, late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were forced to deal with a less understanding culture. In its various formulations, patriarchy posits men's traits and/or intentions as the cause of women's oppression. This way of thinking diverts attention from theorizing the social relations that place women in a disadvantageous position in every sphere of life and channels it towards men as the cause of women's oppression (Gimenez). Different people had many ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities amound women, including expressing their voices and opinions through their literature. By writing stories such as Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic that took a major toll in American History. In this essay, I am going to compare Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” to James’ “Daisy Miller” as portraits of American women in peril and also the men that had a great influence.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in The Yellow Wallpaper and A Streetcar Named Desire

    1527 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many different depictions of gender roles exist in all times throughout the history of American culture and society. Some are well received and some are not. When pitted against each other for all intents and purposes of opposition, the portrayal of the aspects and common traits of masculinity and femininity are separated in a normal manner. However, when one gender expects the other to do its part and they are not satisfied with the results and demand more, things can shift from normal to extreme fairly quickly. This demand is more commonly attributed by the men within literary works. Examples of this can be seen in Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire”, where Stella is constantly being pushed around and being abused by her drunken husband Stanley, and also in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper”, where the female narrator is claimed unfit by her husband as she suffers from a sort of depression, and is generally looked down on for other reasons.

    Read More

  • A Short Biography Of Dorothy Day And The Catholic Worker Movement

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dorothy Day was a brilliant student, and she was accepted to the University of Illinois; however, she only stayed for two years and deserted her studies to move to New York City. In New York City, Day became drawn in a literary and liberal crowd in the city’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. She also got involved with journalism in which she wrote for several socialist and progressive publications in the 1910s and ‘20s. She also helped to establish special homes to help those in need. As she began to socially and politically protest for women’s rights, she ended up arrested and in jail several times. As an effort to get the right for women to be able to vote, she protested in front of the White House in 1917. As a result, she was arrested, put in jail, and then preceded to go on a hunger strike for that.

    Read More

  • The Galvanizer of the Women’s Liberation Movement: Gloria Steinem

    1363 Words  | 3 Pages

    Whether it is the Ancient Greece, Han China, the Enlightened Europe, or today, women have unceasingly been oppressed and regarded as the second sex. Provided that they have interminably been denied the power that men have had, very few prominent female figures like Cleopatra, the Egyptian Queen, or Jeanne d'Arc, the French heroine, have made it to history books. Veritably, it was not until 1792 when Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women addressed the issues of gender equality, that some started hearkening the seemingly endless mistreatment of women. New Zealand was the first country to grant women the right to vote in 1892. The United States did not endorse this until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified, which states “The right of citizens of the United States votes shall not be denied or abridged… on account of sex.” This, however, was not the end to women’s plight. For the majority of the 20th century, America’s idea of a good woman was a good mother and a good wife. In the 1960s and 1970s, a movement that would later bring fundamental changes to the American society was spreading rapidly throughout the country: The Women’s Liberation Movement. With the increasing number of educated women, gender inequality received more attention than ever before. Hundreds of women came together to fight domestic violence, lack of political and economic development, and reproductive restrictions. One of these women was an ordinary girl from Ohio named Gloria Steinem who would later become a feminist icon in the United States. Steinem contributed to the Women’s Liberation Movement by writing about feminism and issues concerning women, co-founding Ms. magazine, giving influential speeches— leading he movement along with...

    Read More

  • Role of Women in Early Republic

    1773 Words  | 4 Pages

    The role of women in the Early Republic is a topic mostly overlooked by historians when dealing with this era of American history. The triumphs of the Revolution and the early events of the new nation were done solely by men. However, women had their own political societies and even participated in the Revolution. Women's roles began to take a major turn after the war with Great Britain. This was due in part to their involvement in the war and female patriotism. Others believed it was due to the easier access to formal education for young women. Whatever the reason, it inspired women to challenge the social structure of the Early Republic. The roles of women were changing in the Early Republic. However, progress was slow and little change followed after the Revolution. This change in social structure elicited two questions. What caused this social change and what was the major setback for the progression of women's rights? These were the questions Linda Kreber's Women In The Republic: Intellect And Ideology In Revolutionary America, Caroline Robbins' review of Mary Norton's Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, and Sheila Skemp's review of Lucia McMahon's Mere Equals: The Paradox of Educated Women in the Early American Republic attempted to answer. Each of the pieces of literature agreed that the social equality of women was changing, but each offer a unique aspect of what changed it, and what slowed progression of equality.

    Read More

  • The Impact Of The American Revolution On The Women's Rights Movement

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...also were not represented, and made women understand that this inferiority dilemma that was going on every day had to stop, and that they had to revolt and fight for their own rights. Her influence combined with other women fighting and the spirit of rebellion already set in men spiked women's interests in their rights and made them want to struggle for their privileges.

    Read More

  • Women's Right Movement

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the mid nineteenth century America was going through an age of reform. The person who would be the center of these reforms would be the women in society. Women soon realized that in order to make sure that all the reforms went through they would need more power and influence in society. The oppression and discrimination the women felt in this era launched the women into create the women’s right movement. The women fought so zealously for their rights it would be impossible for them not to achieve their goals. The sacrifices, suffering, and criticism that the women activist made would be so that the future generations would benefit the future generations.

    Read More

  • The Women's Suffrage Movement

    1257 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...r equality of women whose only representation at the time was through husbands. The brave few who courageously fought in the movement reformed our country and society today. Women such as Alice Paul and Susan B Anthony not only brought on equality for women today these women also brought on a new way women thought towards themselves. Today women think of themselves as independent smart citizens who can be whoever they want to be, politicians, doctors, scientists, etc. In addition women today can wear what they choose. Along with the right of equality and the ability for women to vote there is a responsibility, women should be informed of the political candidates before they vote. All of the freedom we have is a privilege we often take for granted as we don’t think about those women who suffered, abused, and ridiculed for these rights that we have today.

    Read More

  • Anne Bradstreet as First American Feminist

    1754 Words  | 4 Pages

    Feminism today remains prominent because even while women’s rights are very strong, women are still fighting for equality every day. In the time of Anne Bradstreet, women had few rights and they were seen as inferior to men. Anne lived among the puritans whom ruled her everyday life. Although it was against the puritan code for women to receive an education, Bradstreet’s father, Thomas Dudley, loved his daughter dearly and made sure that she was well educated which shows in her works. Anne Bradstreet’s literature became well known only because her family published her works under a male name. This was done because writing poetry was a serious offense to the puritans since poetry was considered creative and the only creating that was done was by God. In the works of Anne Bradstreet, she conveys a feminist attitude, and could very well be one of the first American Feminists.

    Read More

  • The Portrayal of Women in American Literature

    2124 Words  | 5 Pages

    Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.

    Read More

  • Women Roles In The 19th Century

    1395 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women roles have changed drastically in the last 50 to 80 years, women no longer have to completely conform to society’s gender roles and now enjoy the idea of being individuals. Along with the evolution of women roles in society, women presence and acceptance have drastically grown in modern literature. In early literature it was common to see women roles as simply caretakers, wives or as background; women roles and ideas were nearly non-existent and was rather seen than heard. The belief that women were more involved in the raising of children and taking care of the household was a great theme in many early literatures; women did not get much credit for being apart of the frontier and expansion of many of the nations success until much later.

    Read More

  • The Garden Party 1920s

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women no longer wanted to be sheltered from the world and the things going on around them. In 1900 women’s legal standing was fundamentally governed by their marital status. They had very few rights. A married woman had no separate legal identity from that of her husband. She had no right to control her biological reproduction, and no right to sue or be sued since she had no separate standing in court. She had no right to own property in her own name or to pursue a career of her choice. Women could not vote, serve on juries, or hold public office. According to the Supreme Court, they were not “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law (Sara Evans). Women invented forms of politics by establishing voluntary associations and building other institutions in response to unmet social needs. In the Garden party Mrs. Sheridan went against the norm and had Laura take a basket of food to the dead man’s less unfortunate family. This was definitely not what little girls do. "I know," she said. "Let's make up a basket. Let's send that poor creature some of this perfectly good food

    Read More

  • The Women's Liberation Movement

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    Beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century women began to vocalize their opinions and desires for the right to vote. The Women’s Suffrage movement paved the way to the nineteenth Amendment in the United States Constitution that allowed women that right. The Women’s Suffrage movement started a movement for equal rights for women that has continued to propel equal opportunities for women throughout the country. The Women’s Liberation Movement has sparked better opportunities, demanded respect and pioneered the path for women entering in the workforce that was started by the right to vote and given momentum in the late 1950s.

    Read More

  • Women Equality Essay

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gender equality in America is a war that is still being fought today. Around the time of the war of 1812, American women were silenced from debate in public circles which forced them to share their opinions, perspectives, and ideas in private. Rosalie Calvert lived in Maryland during the war and she took responsibilities that many women did not. For example, she took control of family investments, land purchases, and decision for her children. She wrote a series of letters to family members to express her opinions, experiences, and perspective. Her letters represent the desire of American women to delve into the public sphere, to gain equality by establishing themselves as intelligent, and to raise their daughters to become independent in the hope of future gender equality.

    Read More

More about Literary Criticism In Dorothy Parker's A Telephone Call

Open Document