Standard Of Living

A detailed Summary of Standard Of Living


Our world is full of pretenders; stupid people acting smart, white people acting black, ignorant people acting as the educated. This issue is touched in Dorothy Parker's "The Standard of Living", the main characters, two young women named Annabel and Midge, fall into this catagory. The two young middle-class women act as if they are rich, this is shown to us by Parker through an ironic game that the girls play. Using the two young women, Parker shows us that our greed, if allowed to develop, never ceases but grows.

Parker drops hints to the reader about their act when she tells us about their eating habbits; "they ate patties, sweating beads of inferior oil , containing bits of bland meat pogged in pale, stiffening sauce" (Parker 476). After the reader is told that they like to eat foods that generally the more wealthy would eat but made with inferior ingredients, she informs the reader that they are working-class girls when she states "Annabel, two years longer in th


In the end, we see that this is a story about human greed. Not what our greed does but how our greed never ceases to grow. The more we want, the more power we give to our greed. Nobody wants to look "conspicuous and cheap and charming," that is why Parker uses this, along with other descriptions like it to describe the girls so we wouldn't want to be like them. Upon completion of the short story, I was left wondering "If they see a million dollar estate they like, how much money will they be 'left with' then?"

e stenographic department, had worked up to eighteen dollars and fifty cents a week; Midge was still at sixteen dollars" (476). An important point about the image of the girls is made that becomes more crucial in understanding Parker's main point when she mentions "They looked conspicuous and cheap and charming" (477). That is how the two middle-class girls are seen by others as they walk down fifth avenue, "the ideal ground for their favorite game" (477).

The

Some common words found in the essay are:
Annabel Midge, , Standard Living, people acting, conspicuous cheap, silver-fox coats, greed greed, cheap charming, mink coat, conspicuous cheap charming,

Approximate Word count = 662
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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