THE LAST TEABY Dorothy Parker
...ten in the form of dialogue interrupted only by the author’s “he said”, “she said”. Yet both the boy and the girl are fully characterized. Their actions are implicitly embedded into their utterances. Ex. “There’s a girl! Hey, what are you doing there? I don’t want any more tea, thanks.. She is suffering party, and though his long delay must have been a signal of a alarm, she is happy with his arrival and solicitous about his indisposition not knowing its cause yet. First appears the young ma aversion to sugar and cakes. The author subtly implies the action performed by the girl: the man’s remark can appear only as his reaction to the girl’s efforts to attend to his tea. Though her performance is never mentioned but easily deduced from his phrase. The come vague indications at his general indisposition. Their frequency and repetition - all show that he is an egoistic person, focusing on his own feelings and interests only. Ex. … I feel terrible … Oh, I am ruined.. I’m in terrible shape. Oh I’m shot. The reference to the party and the fabulous Caroll McCall entirely and dramatically changes the dialogue. It loses its natural character of exchange of remarks. It happens so because each of the speakers, the boy and the girl, is concerned not with listening but with self- expression, developing one point: the young man praises the new object of his admiration. The girl, her feelings hurt, her pride wounded, manages to keep the brave front and is feverishly supplying details of her imaginary new friend Wally Dillon and his passion. They both use exaggerated judgments and opinions, and their speech abounds in hyperboles, highly emotional epithets, expressive interjections. Ex. “ crazy Wally”, the most wonderful dancer”, “ till I don’t know what time”, “ everybody in the place, “ a million offers”, “She’s ages older than I’m”, “ What a couple of eyes she’s got on her” The young man does nit notice or pay attention to the girl’s jealousy and anguish. Exclamatory sentences with emphatic inversion: Ex. “Can she step!” “Can that girl hold her liquor!’ “Does she carry it?” and endearing “baby” and “little girl”, expressions of fascination, like “ There’s a girl”, “ What a looker she is!” All these and similar simply pour out of him. Exposition of the story: initiate the reader to the café where a girl is waiting for a boy. He is late. The reference to the party and Carol McCall changes ...