Paradox In Love Song

Rick Riordan once said, "No one can hate you with more intensity than someone who used to love you" (Riordan). This quote relates well to the poem, Love Song by Dorothy Parker because it talks about a woman who hates a man she once loved. The author of this poem uses similes, paradox, and repetition to describe the love the woman once had for the man she now hates.

Similes are used throughout the poem to describe the man's characteristics. For example, in the poem, one of the line says, "His words ring sweet as a chime of gold /... He is jubilant as a flag unfurled" (Parker Lines 3,5) meaning that when he speaks, his voice sounds very peaceful and soft as if he were singing like a lullaby. When it says, he is jubilant as a flag unfurled, it

The poem says very positive stuff about the man, but then she turns it around and says something negative about him. She says, "My own dear love, he is all my world / And I wish I'd never met him" (Parker Lines 7,8). This shows the reader that the man means a lot to her and she loves him very much, however, she wishes she would not have ever met him. In another line from the poem, it says, "My own dear love, he is all my dreams / And I wish he were in Asia" (Parker Lines 15,16). Those lines are explaining how the man is all the woman ever wanted, but wishes he were far away from her because she no longer loves him. The last line included in the poem that shows paradox is, "My own dear love, he is all my heart / And I wish somebody'd shoot him" (Parker Lines 23, 24) means how the man is all she ever wanted, but she also wishes he were dead. The writer used paradox to let the reader know that she once loved a man, but now she has so much hate for him. In the article called, Scott and Dottie, Scott Donaldson mentioned an affair that Dorothy Parker had with the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. "At a Hollywood party[,] on the evening of 12 July 1937[,] Parker told her that she had slept with Scott Fitzgerald 'in a one or two night affair'…" (Donaldson, 41). This article also states the time around when the affair could have happened. In his article, Scott Donaldson said, "If Scott Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker did have a brief affair,

Dorothy Parker used the phrase "My Love" (Parker Line 9,17) to begin the first line of each stanza and then began talking about the man. "My own dear love" (Parker Line 1,7,15,23) is used at the beginning of each last phrase in the stanza as well. These are used for repetition to describe the man and uses this to refer to him throughout the whole poem. In an article named, 'What Line is it Anyway?' Written by Julia Boissoneau Hans, has said that Dorothy Parker wrote mostly about women drinking in a club. Julia Boissoneau said, "Parker wrote mostly about women, but you are more likely to find her characters in a club drinking hooch than at a parlor sipping tea" (Boissoneau 101). Dorothy Parker focused on writing about the lives of women. It is also mentioned in the article that, "Her stories take place in apartments and speakeasies, on the city streets and in the backseat of a taxicab more than just the lives of women as they negotiate sex and the city" (Boissoneau 101). Dorothy Parker wrote her stories and poems relating to her daily