Indledning
Waiting for a phone call from your significant other can be excruciating and leave you in a state of desperation. This is the case for the protagonist in Dorothy Parkers:
A Telephone Call. The short story was written in 1928 and is told through an inner monologue of a woman who is waiting for her boyfriend to call her back.
Parker dives into the themes: Paranoia, depression, obsession, and the expectation of women.
The social setting of the story is important in understanding the protagonist’s reaction in relation to the phone call. Parker explores the themes by using a pattern of insufficient communication.
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Uddrag
While the female protagonist obeys his words. Thus, triggering paranoia and obsessive behavior when the call does not happen. Obsession and paranoia are explored through the protagonist who awaits a phone call from her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend’s lack of calling generates obsessive thoughts, insecurity, and paranoia within the woman: “He was busy, and he was in a hurry, and there were people around him, but he called me “darling” twice.
That’s mine, that’s mine. I have that, even if I never see him again.” Oh, but that’s so little. That isn’t enough. Nothing’s enough I never see him again.” (p. 1 s.21-24).
A Telephone Call explores the way women are expected to behave in a relationship during the twentieth century. The female protagonist is expected to rely upon and not question her boyfriend’s words.
Men are furthermore portrayed as compelled to deal with emotional- and complaining women. Due to the fact that the boyfriend, whom the protagonist hasn’t spoken to in 3-4 days, is in a hurry to hang up.
Without questioning his girlfriend’s state of mind or reason for calling: “Good-by, darling.” ”He was busy, and he can’t say much in the office” (p.1. ll.16-17).
When the protagonist’s boyfriend doesn’t call back, she’s then thrown into a state of complete dependency on God and the hope of her boyfriend calling.
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