What Does Dorothy Parker Represent

Dorothy Parker is an influential poet of the 20th century who created a distinct voice weaving symbolism, traditional rhyme schemes, and feminist perspective together to create sarcastic, witty, and critical poetry.One of the defining characteristics of Parker’s poetry is her use of symbolism and metaphors to represent society’s views on women. For example, in “Epitaph for a Darling Lady,” she uses sand and dust to represent how only external beauty is valued in society. Through the lines “All her hours were yellow sands, Blown in foolish whorls and tassels,” Parker establishes how women are thought of as insignificant and how their actions are “foolish”. She also uses “little castles”(sand castles) to represent society's ideals of the

Tinsel is cheap, flashy, decorative material that is used to spruce up a christmas tree. Parker establishes the idea that a woman's poetry must be just pretty words and empty thoughts much like tinsel is just a decorative material that can be easily discarded and doesn't have any other use. Through Parker’s symbolic and metaphorical structures we often get deeper insight into society's misogynistic innerworkings which is very typical in her works. Further, Parker’s unique voice can be attributed to her use of traditional rhyme schemes to convey deeper meaning in her poetry. Parker uses the rhyme scheme ABAB repeatedly in her poetry which gives a positive and cheery feel to her verses but also contrasts the deeper meaning of the poem. For example, in the epitaph poem, Parker uses a traditional rhyme scheme which creates a nursery rhyme like setting when the poem is actually talking about death and society’s shallow views of women. This clash in structure and theme creates a memorable and thought provoking effect which is very prominent in Parker’s