Women In Dorothy Parker's Unfortunate Coincidence

Dorothy Parker writes in her poem “Unfortunate Coincidence,” “By the time you swear you're his, / Shivering and sighing. / And he vows his passion is / Infinite, undying. / Lady make note of this-- / One of you is lying.” Surely, by most standards this sort of remark on romance would be considered by many to be pessimistic, however the story of Parker’s life reads like that of a romantic tragedy: she is unhappy in her marriage, and after an abortion she attempts suicide twice, then even divorces her husband, Eddie Parker. Being in the 1920’s, where sexual and romantic freedom for women was still newly emerging and women are still expected to maintain purity and uphold traditional values, her story is still viewed as an extraordinary one of
In a criticism of Parker’s Ladies of the Corridor, Marion Meade writes that Parker’s philosophy that resonates throughout the play is that “[women] should be better trained, adjusted to live life without a man, a problem that she herself had yet to resolve” (Meade 350). This demonstrates not only that Parker didn’t trust men, but also that she didn’t trust romance in and of itself. She shows that marriage is crippling and stifles expression when Mildred laments about her inability to use impractical skills that marriage and the pursuit of marriage has given her, saying, “No, no fooling, what can I do? Oh, I do know. I can arrange flowers. I'm really a whiz at that” (Parker 59). The pursuit of romance, Parker argues, leaves little time for women to truly improve themselves and pursue their passions. Today, although romantic expectations for women have gradually become more comparable to those suffered by men, both sexes are bound to expectations of the development of their domestic skills, which often limit their time expendable for the exploration of other abilities. For example, women are still often expected to have a knack for interior decorating, or men are expected to be able to repair pipes and other assorted things around the house. Moreover, in another criticism by Ann Fox says that another character, Lulu “eventually reverts to old patterns, particularly trapped by the rhetoric of romantic love, one that would have her reattach herself to a new man, to make herself ‘useful’ again” (Fox 13). Instead of rejecting the socially instilled ideals of romance, she is influenced by her friend Connie to, despite all warnings, completely surrender herself to another person. In order to make herself - as Fox words it - “useful,” she must conform to societal expectations