Manipulative Woman In Dorothy Parker's A Certain Lady?

Who is “A Certain Lady”? Although Dorothy Parker, author of “A Certain Lady”, only “explicitly names herself as the protagonist” in two of her works (Helal 77), it seems that she embodies the speaker of this poem. The speaker is a manipulative woman who is apparently an amazing actress. Parker has also been said to “cunningly manipulate her autobiographical monologues both to exploit the literary market and to critique the limiting effects of celebrity culture on women writers” (Helal 78). Although the woman in the poem is manipulating a man rather than monologues or markets, it is not hard to believe that Parker would be doing the same to a man. Dorothy Parker “publicly performed a highly stylized femininity, [but] textually she aspired …show more content…
It is not made entirely clear to the reader exactly what relationship these two have, but there seems to be a strong relationship between them. The man is not faithful to the woman and easily becomes bored with her, so "in search of novelty" (Parker 21) he goes and finds other girls to sleep with. When he returns back to the woman, he tells her of his “adventures” with other women, and expects her to be happy or excited for him. The speaker is a woman who has been hurt one too many times and wants revenge. She feels that if the man can go be with other women, why can 't she be with someone else too? The relationship turns into a plot for retribution. The woman keeps up the act that everything is okay so the man will continue to “stray,” and while he is gone, she gets to have her own …show more content…
The wife in “A Certain Lady” knew how to “work” her husband. These two are both very manipulative so they can get what they want. The wife spends the entirety of the poem painting the husband as the “bad guy” so that by the end of the poem, when the reader finds out that she also cheats, it is nearly impossible to infer that she is doing anything wrong. Parker found that pretending she hates women really lit a fire under her career, so she went with it. Helal also notes Parker’s “ability to control her image” (81). Both the wife and Parker were willing to do what they needed to make themselves look better. One line from the poem that really fits both of them is “And you believe, so well I know my part” (Parker 9). This line fits them both so well because they were both putting on acts. Parker was putting on a ladylike act when she was in public, but a very masculine act (which maybe was less of an “act”) when she would write. The wife put on an act of “everything is okay, dear. Now leave so I can have my fun.” The two of them are equally