Dorothy Parker's One Perfect Rose

1006 Words5 Pages
In all forms of medium, repetition can easily be used to place emphasis, signify irony, and influence the effectiveness of a scene to the audience. “With each repetition [,] it gains in strength” (Mays, 2011), and Dorothy Parker uses this form of literary technique to drive home the tone of her poem. In Parker’s “One Perfect Rose”, she constantly repeats the word “perfect” throughout to indicate the speaker’s frustrations and sarcasm. Each stanza ends with “one perfect rose” (Parker, 4-12) to play on the same old tired cliché of presenting women with roses in order to win their affections. While the rose itself may be perfect, the speaker believes that this gift is quite the opposite. By repeatedly using “perfect”, the reader becomes aware…show more content…
It is known that “perfect” is not portrayed as anything but irony. The speaker sarcastically refers to these roses as perfection because they are not a creative gift at all. She has seen and received so many flowers that she can tell which one are flawless and she has become bored of this tired old cliché. She appears materialistic, wondering, “why is it no one ever sent me yet one perfect limousine” (Parker, 9-10). The word “perfect” comes up again, but it is now associated with a limousine instead of a rose. In this example, she truly yearns for this sort of perfection, and a change. Her issues with these presents aren’t because they are flawless, but rather because they are all the same. She doesn’t understand why she cannot receive something different for once and blames it on her bad luck to only receive roses. She “[…] [knows] the language of the floweret” (Parker, 5) because of how many times she has received only flowers. She wishes for something more and something to break this terribly boring trend. She becomes frustrated that no one has thought to do anything creative and openly mocks the gifts that she is sent, sarcastically referring to them as “perfect”. By repeatedly saying this word, it loses all meaning, and doesn’t have the same powerful effect that it did at the end of the first stanza. “One perfect rose” becomes far less interesting once it’s established at how common it is, and it signifies that change is always needed to prevent the same boring scenario over and over
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