Love once functioned simply as a business deal, with a man paying another man for his daughter’s hand in marriage. This payment would assure the father of his son-in-law’s status and admiration for his daughter and it inadvertently led to a sense of a man owning his wife. Thus was the culture of marriage for many centuries, however, this era of female enslavement stood no chance against the rapid urbanization of America. Women were now fleeing from the chains locked by their fathers and were heading to these new bustling cities, taking them by storm with their newfound freedom of expression and speech. These women were known as flappers; they dressed and spoke with sass and confidence, no longer shying away from the other gender’s illusion
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This symbol of love is contrasted by the limousine, which is very prominently a symbol of materialistic wealth. The speaker is more interested in wealth, which insinuates that she feels love is meant to be purchased not reciprocated. Another literary device in “One Perfect Rose’ is the repetition of the phrase “One Perfect Rose” (4), at the end of each stanza. Each repetition comes after the speaker voices her developing opinion of the man’s love; the first stanza treats the man’s love as a novelty which progresses into the opinion that love is a hackneyed concept. Finally, the speaker’s indifference to the overuse of love develops into disdain as she moves onto the concept of wealth which she seems to view as eternally gratifying. This seems to be a common occurrence in Dorothy’s works as Colleen Breese remarks “The speakers in [Parker's] poems are mainly urban sophisticates, and her pages are fraught with images of isolation, degradation, loneliness, and depression” (General Statements on Parker’s Poetry 1). The speaker in “One Perfect Rose” is isolated by her desire for wealth, which destroys any potential relationships in the process. Overall, this poem displays a woman who neglects a man’s love due to her own greed, yet the materialistic woman will never be pleased, stuck in a state of perpetual want and
This symbol of love is contrasted by the limousine, which is very prominently a symbol of materialistic wealth. The speaker is more interested in wealth, which insinuates that she feels love is meant to be purchased not reciprocated. Another literary device in “One Perfect Rose’ is the repetition of the phrase “One Perfect Rose” (4), at the end of each stanza. Each repetition comes after the speaker voices her developing opinion of the man’s love; the first stanza treats the man’s love as a novelty which progresses into the opinion that love is a hackneyed concept. Finally, the speaker’s indifference to the overuse of love develops into disdain as she moves onto the concept of wealth which she seems to view as eternally gratifying. This seems to be a common occurrence in Dorothy’s works as Colleen Breese remarks “The speakers in [Parker's] poems are mainly urban sophisticates, and her pages are fraught with images of isolation, degradation, loneliness, and depression” (General Statements on Parker’s Poetry 1). The speaker in “One Perfect Rose” is isolated by her desire for wealth, which destroys any potential relationships in the process. Overall, this poem displays a woman who neglects a man’s love due to her own greed, yet the materialistic woman will never be pleased, stuck in a state of perpetual want and