Dorothy Parker, an accomplished American poet, exposes the darker side of human behavior through her epigrammatic style of poetry. She believed that a writer must say what he feels and sees. She specialized in the hard truths, particularly about death, in both life and love. Some major motifs present in Parkers work include loneliness, lack of communication between men and women, disintegration of relationships, human frailties, and the affectations and hypocrisies of a patriarchal society. Parkers wit is largely autobiographical reflecting the tumultuous years of her youth that included alcoholism, romantic disasters, and attempted suicides. The three poems provided in the text exemplify how Parker utilizes poetic devices such as irony, satire, and sarcasm to address the human frailties involved with searching for meaningful relationships and suicide.The first poem DeProfundis provides a glimpse of Parkers cynical attitude toward men and relationships. De Profundis, which translates in Latin as out of the depth, is curiously ambiguous. Reference the poem shown here in its entirety.Oh, is it, then, UtopianTo hope that I may meet a manWholl not relate, in accents suave,The tales of girls he used to have?This verse succinctly posed as a question asks if it is idealistic to have a relationship with a man who is not suave. Suave, which means smoothly affable and polite though often without deep interest or sincerity (Websters 2272, emphasis added), could imply that men are De Profundis, or shallow. In Resume, Parker employs irony to humorously relate a tragic human situation, suicide. On the surface this irony seems to be that the poem advocates suicide but says the opposite. Further analysis shows that the irony is not so direct and is again hidden in the ambiguity of the title. The poem sarcastically offers incomprehensible and mocking reasons to not commit suicide and continue to live. Regarding the title of the poem, the word re...
