Dorothy Parker's Bold and Controversial Legacy and Writing Style

`“On Turning Ten” and “Life is Fine” both imply the theme of depression without directly stating it, creating the most enduring component of the piece. In “Life is Fine”, actions are the center focus in the poem, particularly attempted suicide. The speaker in this poem talks about his past actions, including when he “tried to think but couldn’t/So I jumped in and sank” (Hughes ll.3-4). This direct attempt at ending his own life creates a very extreme affect, alarming the reader. The first six stanzas focus on two cases of failed suicide attempts. The poem does not showcase how the

It’s easy to feel worthless. Almost every person feels this deep emotion at some time in life, but people handle it different. Everywhere people are always judging. Judgement from parents, from family, and even from friends is inescapable. People can tear themselves down in many ways, such as through school, not feeling they look good enough, and even just not feeling like they’re ever good enough to be living on Earth. In Janice Mirikitani’s poem “Suicide Note,” it talks about an Asian-American student currently in college. She tries her hardest, she wants to succeed and make her parents proud. Her parents have high standards for her, as they want her to receive a 4.0 grade point average. Although she gives her best effort, her grade point average is still less than a 4.0, and for that reason her parents are not proud of her, she’s not their perfect, ideal daughter. So she enters that point where she no longer feels proud of her accomplishments, she feels worthless, and unintelligent. She decides to commit suicide by jumping out of a window in her college dorm. In her suicide note she apologizes to her parents for not being good enough. “Suicide Note” is a free form poem, it has no set stanzaic pattern, the sentences break in unexpected places, and the structure varies throughout the poem. It uses imagery to connect with the reader, and the stanzas are set up in way that make the lines to appear as they are falling. Through the use of enjambment, and end-stopped line the

Poetry as a literally work in which the expression of ideas and feelings is given strength has had great authors overtime who took different perspectives in this genre of literature. These poets used distinctive rhythm and style to express their styles, poetic themes, outlook on life, and had their share of influence on the American society. This paper uses the basis of these styles, themes, outlook on life and subsequent influence on the American society to compare three prolific poets who ventured into this literature genre: Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, and Maya Angelou. Robert Frost (1874-1963) holds a unique and almost sole position in the career span which mostly encompasses

To begin with, the author’s implementation of short sentence fragments throughout the poem illustrates the exasperation and frustration bottled up in women in response to

Fighting for justice in “Revolutionary Suicide” presents two conflicts between suicide and salvation. In Oakland California around 1970, African Americans were being so mistreated that a movement was created to fight for black power which is known as Black Panther Party. African Americans were going up against the police and government of the racist south. This was a time Jim Crow laws had just ending along with segregation ,but that dosen’t mean that the whites of the south still didn’t have the same intentions they used to have about blacks. Which lead to many confrontations that resulted in death or injury causing revolutionary suicide. In poem “Revolutionary Suicide,” The style of the poem is built of a cause and effect. First, the speaker addresses that having nothing causes him to have everything .“By having no family I inherited the family of humanity …By having surrendering my life to the revolution I found internal life.” Readers can get an impression that the speaker would make a great leader. Especially when he tells the audience that he is willing to sacrifice himself in order to gain revolution. The speaker is confronting the opposition letting them know he is not afraid of death nor them. He also writes this in the poem

The poem “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note” by Amiri Baraka uses vivid images of sights, sounds, and daily activities to symbolize a heartfelt story. In the poem, Amiri, is one of the African American slaves who is frustrated about the discriminatory treatment by whites. So frustrated he wants to commit suicide. The writer used transition words starting with “lately”, “now”, and “then” for each stanza. He was imagining how he acted before his death and how his daughter reacted to his death.

The poem Suicide Note, written by Janice Mirikitani (1987), talks about a young lady, who has studied in an Asian-American female college. The lady, unfortunately, committed suicide by jumping through her dormitory’s window. She left behind a note, citing reasons that led to her actions. After a critical analysis of the note, her parents were held responsible for her actions; they were pressurizing her to perform better in her exams. The poem, thus, describes the real feelings and the emotions of this young lady, who believes that committing suicide is the only option left to please her parents and to escape the enormous pressure placed on her. The persona uses voice in the poem to bring our attention to the sufferings she was going through, and that led to the devastating event. Voice in poetry is the strong words of a line, stanza or a page that creates a relationship between the audience and the persona. Voice can, therefore, be categorized as imagery, patterns of sounds created, rhythm, tone, and diction (Gahern 166). The following is a description of how the voice in Mirikitani’s suicide note helps the reader understand the persona’s reasoning.

Young, beautiful, and doomed; In several, if not all, works of Edgar Allan Poe, there is a not so subtle theme that is found. One of the death and beauty. How is the death of a young woman romanticized within selected works of Edgar Allan Poe? In such works as “Lenore”, “Ulalume”, popular “Annabel Lee”, “The Raven”, and short story “The Oval Painter” ,the “death of a beautiful woman” theme is prevalent and strongly noted within context, word choice, and imagery. In the eyes of Edgar Allan poe, death, especially that of a woman, to be lamented and mourned by a “bereaved lover”, is the most valued tool to have and utilize when writing. In his own life, Poe was able to relate to the subject matter, as many of his heroins are believed to be based upon his wife Virginia, who had died at a young age. Unraveling the methods to how Poe romanticized death of young women in his literature might give insight to not only Poe’s life, but humanity in general..

One of the 20th century’s most important and influential modernist poets was Hilda Doolittle, more commonly known as H.D. While other artists struggled to find a new mode of expression, H.D. found imagism and created intense poems delving into very specific depictions. In “Sheltered Garden,” H.D. employs intense imagery using nature in order to put forth an opinion or viewpoint, which is also highlighted by another poem titled, “Sea Rose.” By analyzing these two poems, one can more fully comprehend the modernist movement/mentality and how H.D. shaped her own form of poetry. In “Sheltered Garden,” the poet uses the image of a garden to not only push against society’s constraint of women, but also its imposed ideas of beauty, creating tension between the natural and the unnatural.

The poem “Suicide’s Note” by Langston Hughes is a deep and emotional poem that is shown as the result of the imagery and literary devices present in the poem.

(A&E Television Networks, para. 1) Parker was a strong believer in the fight for Civil Rights (A&E Television Networks, para. 3). Her first collection of poetry became a best seller, which was published in 1926 (Academy of American Poets, para. 2). In addition, she won an award for her autobiographical

Dorothy Parker intrusted her literary estate as her will to Martin Luther King Jr. because of his cause. He and Dorothy were both involved with civil rights and Martin was the icon of that movment. She most likely felt that if her literary estate was given to Martin, it would have been some help to the movement and Martin would have put great use to it. She was going to live all the way throught the Civil Right movement so she had to put it in the hand of someone she

Not all poems fall into the category of epic poetry or ballads. Some pieces are short and concise rather than lengthy and elegant. A shorter poem may focus more thoroughly on diction, or the author’s specific choice of words, rather than things such as rhyme scheme or meter. Langston Hughes poem “Suicide’s Note” is a perfect example of this. Because it is only twelve words long, every single word is important and chosen carefully. This poem uses many literary techniques, none more than diction, to achieve its purpose. which is to focus on the split-second decision that is suicide.

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) and Anne Sexton (1928-1974) both explored similar themes such as tone, structure, and symbolism. Many of their poems were cries for help, which resulted into metal illness, depression, and suicide. In 1958, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath met, and much to their surprise had a few things in common. They both were fascinated with death and suicide. Both Sexton’s and Plath’s poetry are considered as confessional poetry in which they were very honest, depressed, and had suicidal or homicidal tendencies. Sylvia and Anne’s views on what happened in their life and on independence, are what nearly separates them from other confessional poets. Sexton and Plath’s poetry range over a variety of topics such as death, suicide, rage, and mourning. They both utilize a convincing use of symbolism, deep image, metaphors, and soul-searching. Plath’s “The Colossus”, “Full Fathom Five”, “Daddy”, and Sexton’s “And one for My Dame” and “All My Pretty Ones”, are very enraged and different feminist perspectives, giving different views on the relationships with a father and a husband.

The poem, “Résumé”, is about the inconveniences of suicide, and Dorothy Parker intends to tell that living is bad, but not nearly as bad as all the ways you could commit suicide, indicated by the final line of “might as well live”. The mood established in the poem is pessimistic, indicated by saying “might as well”, which shows unwillingness but acceptance of life, a concept that most anyone