The Enigmatic Nature of Love in Dorothy Parker’s Poetry

“The Choice” by Dorothy Parker explores the theme of love and what one would do in the name of love. In the poem, the speaker compares her two suitors by juxtaposing what each has to offer her. One suitor offers her wealth, while the other offers her a song. In the end, she queries her enthrallment to romance against material goods.

In the first Stanza of the poem, the speaker states that her intended would have “given me rolling lands/Houses of marble, and billowing farms” (Ln 1-2). This is promptly juxtaposed by the other’s “only a lilting song/Only a melody, happy and high” (Ln. 5-6).

Yet, she chooses to go without the immense lands and marbled estates, and instead chooses to have not a “thought for another” except the apparently not so rich musician. The musician’s light and graceful rhythm overtook the speaker, so that she has no reasoning at the time to think things through. She is overcome by romance and its sweet nothings that she momentarily loses her logics.

At the end, after she had succumbed to the seductive melody of the musician’s spellbound song, she follows him happily without thinking. She gives up the opportunity for a possible life led as a queen with her own horses all in the name of love. Why then does she say at the end that “Somebody ought to examine my head?” Well, she is being regretful and the same time humorous about the whole thing. This is classic Dorothy Parker being amusing about the ludicrousness of romantic relationships.

While the final line seems to contradict the rest of the poem in suggesting the speaker must be crazy to have given up on such noble opportunity, it is not meant to be taken literary. In fact, she seems to be having a conversation with the chosen lover in which she teases him on how silly she must have been to choose him over the wealthy man. The second person pronoun “you” in the poem suggests she is having a direct talk with the subject himself, making him feel important now that she had chosen him over all the wealth of the somewhat unromantic suitor.

So what is the moral of it all? All is fair in love. It is okay to miss out on a potentially huge estate because you are in love since money can’t buy you love. Love conquers all, so as long as you love and are loved, you will win it all in the long run.