The Last Tea Dorothy Parker

The Last Tea By Dorothy Parker The story submitted to the consideration is called “The Last Tea” and is written by Dorothy Parker. As for the writer, I have to mention that Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles. Concerning the title of the story it is thought-provoking and made me read the story. At first glance it seems fairly simple, but with the development of the story is surprisingly complex. The last tea is a story that is addressed to women and deals with 2 main topics: men`s attention and loneliness.

This is a bitter story written in a cruel way. Now I’d like to reconstruct the events. The young man and the girl met somewhere at the cafe for a cup of tea. He told her about another woman whom he was delighted by. While he was telling about that woman, the girl heard him out with patience and even with some positive commentaries. At the end of their conversation he suggested to pay the check and put her on a bus. Instead she refused and said with the irony that he wanted to call up his friend. And he without any suspicion said goodbye to her and gave her the best wishes.

Speaking about the theme of the story I’d like to pin down the relationships between a man and a woman. As for the idea, it is the nonmutual love as the result of not having much in common, misunderstanding within sexes. The story presents an interesting example of the indirect characterization. The author does not say directly that the girl is lonely but let her act and leaves the reader draw his own conclusion. The story begins with the description of the young man and the girl who are the main characters of the story.

There in not any preface of the story: we know nothing about the past of the people. The author shows the characters in a certain period of their lives. The plot is trivial and the characters are really true to life. The text is homogeneous. It`s almost consists of the characters` dialogues, where you can find numerous words and phrases of informal style. E. g: « That`s good», «the poor boy», «poor sick thing»… Also interjection «Oh, Ah, goodness» introducing some of the passages which normally occurs in oral speech. The sentences have free and careless structures.

From the very beginning we come across a witty satire. Such stylistic device is used by the author to draw our attention and to make us commiserate to the girl. E. g. «The girl with the artificial camellia had been sitting for 40 minutes» but she said «I was late myself» «I haven`t been here more than a minute». She tries to be polite and to show the great care to the man. E. g. «I`m ruined» he said. «Ah the poor boy» «Ah and you came way up here to meet me! You shouldn`t have done that»   “I would have understood. Ah just think of it coming all the way up here when it`s so sick! – She said. But the man begins talking about another woman Carol McCall. The man considered her to be perfect. He said «that`s what I call a girl». This part can be regarded as a climax of the story. To conclude it all up, I’m to say that the problems presented in this text are very topical in our every-day life. People often don’t notice those who are near them, who care about them, who are devoted to them. The best we can do is to pay tribute to the author’s vision of life and to her ability of creating the atmosphere of being entirely involved in the process of the story.