Love- A feeling, a word and a sensation that has made people laugh, cry , kill, poets write realms of poetry, scientists try and understand what it is all about and many others wish for it. There are different kinds of love- the love a mother has for her child, the love a father shows his children, love for friends, pets and then there is romantic love. Of the above, perhaps it is romantic love that has been the most written about and vilified. Love is also a state of being that makes a person experience different emotions at the same time, especially romantic love. Happy one minute and forlorn the other, the lovers wonder what hit them. Being in love is not a rose strewn path. The more love there is, the more possibilities of jealousy and disappointment. It is also possible that two people who are in love with each other could be dissatisfied in their relationship. Dorothy Parker’s “One Perfect Rose” and Anne Sexton’s Cinderella take a mocking, sarcastic tone while talking about love in their respective poems. Although the poems start off on a positive note, the interwoven sarcasm is quite evident soon. The speakers are dissatisfied with as well as cynical about love. The two poems reflect the truth about romantic love- it is not perfect- it is rather a journey that is filled with highs as well as dissatisfaction,disappointment and ultimately heartbreak. While some choose to part ways, some stay together long after love has left. As the poems suggest, love is ultimately unsatisfying as the expectations and feelings of reciprocity can be overwhelming.
In ‘One Perfect Rose’, the speaker talks about the one single rose that was given to her during the relationship. She calls it the “one perfect rose (Parker, 4)” because the giver has chosen the rose as the messenger for the deep hearted, tender, pure love. She calls it the amulet for it protects his heart, its fragile leaves enclosing his feelings for her. It is in the last stanza we get to hear what the speaker really feels about the gift. Although the rose is a sign of the love her lover feels for her, she is not satisfied. She wonders why it is that he chose to give her just one flower and why she has her in entire life not gotten a ‘perfect limousine’. It isn’t entirely the material aspects that the speaker is wanting for.perhaps the limousine stands for all the other things she had wished for in the relationship and never got. The rose might signify the actual present or the love that he has for her but it is apparent that she wants more. In spite of the tender love that is evident, there is always a craving for more. The grass is always greener on the other side and there is always the wish that there would be more in the relationship. It is evident that the speaker is dissatisfied in her love.
Sexton’s poem ‘Cinderella’ offers a different take on the classic fairy tale. The happily ever after of the story is compared to a museum piece something that is beautiful, that can be admired but never had. Sexton talks about how the notions of ‘happily ever after’ does not take into concern the effects of middle age and the other mundane aspects of a life lived together. The fairy tale effect of romantic love soon wears off. The chase is exciting but once its gone, the remnants are not so fairy tale or romantic after all. Sexton starts off her poem comparing love to winning a lottery or striking it big all of a sudden. She talks about the plumber who wins a lottery and moves up the social ladder, the nursemaid who becomes the wife of a heir, the milkman who makes money through brilliant real estate deals and finally the charwoman who sees a windfall in her earning because she happened to be in the ‘right’ bus and claimed insurance. She compares love and the ‘happily ever after’ life to an unexpected winning that completely transforms the life of people. These examples in the first three stanzas of the poem are a build up to the story. Just as the lives of the milkman, charwoman, nursemaid and the plumber change drastically, Cinderella’s life too changes overnight. In this case, over the course of three nights. From being a hater stepdaughter, she gets to marry the prince. But Sexton seems to warn the readers that the ending is not as rosy as it might seem. The domestic scenes that she adds after the happily ever after story is perhaps what is to be expected after the romantic beginnings. Sexton writes her poem in prose form. This is a reflection of the realistic attitude of love that she takes. After the high of the courtship and the chase, there is a happily ever after. But there is also a life ‘after’ that. A life that is filled with everyday mundane tasks that takes the romance out of the love. Her sarcastic tone in the poem suggests that romantic love does not always live up to its promises. There is always a certain level of disappointment that is a part of it. Romantic love is usually built up to a level of fantasy which almost always clashes with the realities of life. Although Sexton sounds cynical, she is not completely against love. She just says that there is also another side to the illusions of romantic love.
It is also true that love has been commercialized to a large extent. There is a big industry out there that is dependent on romantic love. Greeting cards, roses, candles and chocolates are sold in enormous quantities the world over to perpetuate what McDonald calls a myth. In his book, “Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre’ he quotes Meg Ryan from the movie Kate and Leopold and says that perhaps love is a myth just like Santa Claus. Meg Ryan in the movie says that love is a myth that has been perpetuated and sold to people so they would keep buying the products that have come to ‘define’ romantic life. Romantic love may or may not be a myth and not everyone in their lives would experience a love that would transform them or blow their minds away. But it still ends up creating monumental expectations. big Businesses have decreed that love is not complete without romantic gifts, meals and trips. A proposal with the diamond ring was the product of a successful advertisement campaign by a diamond company. With such high expectations for love, there is bound to be disappointment and dissatisfaction. The tempo that is in the beginning of a any romantic relationship cannot be maintained forever. The passion of romantic love can change into companionship as the years pass by or hatred as the two people involved are either bored or dissatisfied with their lives. This is reflected in both the poems of Parker and Sexton. they both start off their poems talking about the highs of love. But eventually the disappointment and reality comes out.
Romantic love is passionate and blind, tempered by a sense of adventure, abandonment and sexual desire. The extreme highs of the initial days of a relationship cannot be matched in a few years time and it only leads to dissatisfaction. Romantic love as described by the fairy tales, love sonnets, poems, books and mass media is a phenomenon that is built on a lot of things that cannot be sustained on a long term basis. The wise thing to do would be to enjoy the highs and also accept that love like everything else in life is susceptible to change. Acceptance of the realities of life could be of great help when it comes to dissatisfaction in love and relationship. Sexton and Parker cleverly explain this through wit, sarcasm and cynicism in their respective poems.
Works Cited
Parker, Dorothy. "One Perfect Rose." The Portable Dorothy Parker. Ed. Brendan Gill. NY: The Viking Press, 1973.
Sexton, Anne. “Cinderella.” units.miamioh.edu. n.d. Web. 29 Mar 2016.
McDonald. J. Tamar. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. New York: Columbia University Press. 2007.
