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Background
Authorial Context: Dorothy Parker and Death
In Dorothy Parker: In Her Own Words, Barry Day describes Parker as a person “who had always toyed with death” (Day, Barry. Dorothy Parker: In Her Own Words. Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004, p. 39). He links her fascination with death to the deaths of her two mothers and two husbands. Parker’s life story pushes the poem into an autobiographical context, where Parker becomes both the speaker and the audience. In a sense, Parker is telling herself not to attempt death by suicide. Day says that “[t]here were at least half a dozen recorded attempts at suicide and probably several more” (Day 138). Like the “you” in the poem, Parker attempted death by suicide in multiple ways. She cut her wrists or used “[r]azors” (Line 1), and she drank shoe polish or ingested poisonous “[a]cids” (Line 3).
The early deaths of her mothers and her difficult romantic relationships with men showed Parker the hardships of life, and often, she couldn’t put into practice the key message of the poem: “You might as well live” (Line 8). Her multiple suicide attempts reveal The Allure of Death and Self-Harm, yet her continued life indicates a tenacity—she possessed a spirit that kept her from dying. Parker’s speaker doesn’t see life as a symbol of wonder, and neither does Parker, who, according to Barry Day, answered her phone, “What fresh hell is this?” (Day 52). The speaker and Parker confront life with caustic humor, using sharp laughs to deal with life’s pains.
Literary Context: Women in Literature and Death by Suicide
Though a person of any gender from any walk of life can experience suicide ideation, the poem arguably addresses the glamorization of women and death by suicide. Many famous women authors died by suicide or created characters who chose to die this way. The 20th-century English novelist Virginia Woolf put stones in her pockets before walking into a river and drowning. In “Résumé,” Parker addresses drowning when she says, “Rivers are damp” (Line 2). In Kate Chopin’s canonized novel, The Awakening (1899), the main character, Edna Pontellier, drowns herself after her lover leaves her. Whether in real life or stories, death by suicide becomes an alluring way to avoid hardships. Arguably, “Résumé” addresses women like Woolf and Pontellier, alerting them of the unpleasant aspects of suicide and telling them, “You might as well live” (Line 8).
Sylvia Plath died by suicide and arguably glamourized in it her novel The Bell Jar (1963), as well as in some of her famous poems, like “Daddy” (1964) and “Lady Lazarus” (1965). Arguably, Plath’s early death adds to her myth, becoming a reason to lionize her on her “résumé.” Thus, the title of Parker’s poem addresses her culture’s tendency to romanticize death by suicide, turning it into an accomplishment or a qualification.
In the following decades, writers would continue to link women to suicide. In Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel The Virgin Suicides (1993), five teen sisters kill themselves. One of the sisters, Cecilia, tells a medical professional, “Obviously, doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl” (Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides. Picador Modern Classics, 2015, p. 7). Parker’s poem responds to Cecilia: Life is arduous for anyone, including a 13-year-old girl, but death by suicide is more difficult, so it is better to choose life.
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