In the poem “The Choice” by Dorothy Parker, the writer is explaining all of the wonderful gifts she has been offered. There is a decision that she must make and that is to choose either a rich man that “loves” her or a poor man that loves her. She had gotten many gifts from the rich man including rolling lands, billow farms, and rubies. The poor man had only given her a lilting song. In the end, the writer chose the poor man, but now she does not think she had made the right decision because she wrote, “Somebody ought to examine my head!” This poem shows expressions and feeling towards other people, which concludes that this is a lyrics poem.

            Elements used in writing will bring your writing to life and more exciting. One element Dorothy Parker used was alliteration. Alliteration is the repetition of consonance sounds. Parker wrote, “You were sudden and swift and strong-.” In this case, Parker repeated the “s” sound and described the poor man. Another example she had used in “The Choice” would be a simile. A simile is a comparison using like or as. In this poem, Parker wrote, “…as fine as a queen.” This statement meant that the rich man made the woman feel as if she were a queen; getting so many things and being treated like royalty.

            The theme of this poem is that money cannot buy love. A reader may never know if the rich man ever loved the writer. All he bought was gifts for her and did not create real love between the two. On the other hand, the poor man did not have any money, so he did not have this problem. In the end, the poor man won the girl because he did not “buy her.”

            Dorothy Parker was born in 1893 in New Jersey. She wrote multiple book reviews to start off with her career for The New Yorker. Throughout her lifetime, she moved to Hollywood. In Hollywood, California, she formed a group called the Algonquin Round Table, where she and other people wrote screenplays. In her personal life, she fought for civil rights and was associated with the Communist Party.