They hail you as their morning star
Because you are the way you are.
If you return the sentiment,
They’ll try to make you different;
And once they have you, safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on;
They’d make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They’d alter all that they admired.
They make me sick, they make me tired.
Men
Analysis, meaning and summary of Dorothy Parker's poem Men
4 Comments
Leave a Reply
Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Dorothy Parker better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.
80 years after the poem was written, long after the poet is dead, and some blood-sucking vampire still thinks her artistry should be held hostage for a few coins.
I fully understand. It seems that you never know when they are going to wish to change you to their liking. Once you marry you eat their kind of meals and eventually you are a reprogrammed Stepford wife, if you are not careful. I won’t marry. I don’t think so.
this poem is a truly powerful one and precisely reflects dorothy’s view of men and the society of the time. dorothy so well explains how men praise women while constantly changing them to their likings (even today!)
I love this poem. Dorothy Parker is so simplistic in the way she talks about how a man changes a woman. Her words, even though they were written in 1926, apply today in the relationship between men and women. 🙂