This is not a poem, but it does involve poets and writers. This is a creative assignment for my 20th century American Fiction class, in which we are studying "faction" or that intersteing mixture of fact and fiction, which started, arguable, with Truman Apote's "In Cold Blood". So here is my little drama. Any suggestions for imporvement are appreciated. I did have fun writing this.


The Unlikely Funeral Home Guests

Author’s Note:

Much of the dialogue in this short drama is actual quotes of the characters being represented, however I have used my creativity to take their quotes out of context and create a new context for them that is still reflective of their celebrity personality.

Cast:

Virginia Woolf Dorothy Parker

Zelda Fitzgerald Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Gertrude Stein Eleanor Roosevelt



It is your typical “happy” funeral for a woman who had lived a long and decent life. She had accomplished her dreams, though simple they were. She never needed anyone to chauffer her about nor to lift her out of her bath tub in her old age. Upon her death, her family breathed a sigh of relief along with their sorrow to see its end. She lived long enough to enjoy life and needn’t to worry about being a burden upon her family.
The funeral home is full of many walks of life—friends and family to wish her farewell and offer sympathy to her children, but along with those common visitors are some of the celebrated personalities who influenced her life indirectly, by speaking to her from pages of a book, causing her to wrinkle her forehead, giving her something to write her college papers about, and most of all, giving her something to do in college.



Virginia Woolf You know, she never did make a big stack of money, but she had a good life.

Dorothy Parker If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people he gave it to.

Virginia Woolf Oh come on now, Dotty. I’ve got money, you know.

Dorothy Parker And look how wet it made you.

Gertrude Stein Well, I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. It’s better to be rich.

Virginia Woolf But what I mean is, Talia lived the life she wanted. She listened to the little voice inside of herself that told her to follow her dreams.

Zelda Fitzgerald I listened to the voices in my head, too. But they didn’t start talking to me soon enough. If they had I could’ve been the next Isadora Duncan.

Dorothy Parker And instead you jumped off of a balcony when you saw Isadora Duncan.

Zelda Fitzgerald Well, this is America. And Talia may not have been rich but she realized her American Dream. We grew up founding our dreams on American advertising. I still believe you can learn to play piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.

Jacqueline Kennedy Well, whatever amount of money she had, she did manage to turn out her children, and as far as I’m concerned, if you bungle raising your children, whatever else you do doesn’t matter very much.

Gertrude Stein I wonder if she had many regrets when she looked back. You know maybe she wished she hadn’t gotten married so young, at 18.

Eleanor Roosevelt Who doesn’t have regrets? But she did get a lot of criticism from her folks for that, and a lot of us feminists tried to tell her it was the wrong decision really, but I told her to do what you feel is right in your heart—either way you’ll be criticized. You’ll be damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Virginia Woolf Well, I remember when she got married. I said to her, Talia, a woman must have money and a room of her own.

Dorothy Parker If you want to know what God thinks of money…

Virginia Woolf Shush now, Dotty.


Eleanor Roosevelt Well, she married a good man who was faithful to her—a rare find. So she knew what she was doing.

Jacqueline Kennedy I don’t think there are any men who are faithful to their wives

(All the women blink and look away in awkward silence).


Dorothy Parker Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song
A medley of extemporanea
And love is a think that can never go wrong
And I am Marie of Romania

(They all break into laughter, then look around quickly and regain their “mournful” composure).


Zelda Fitzgerald Well, they did a nice job on her don’t you think—made her cheeks look rosy and she almost looks like she is smiling. You know, isn’t it a funny thing, why do we spend years using up our bodies to nurture our minds with experience, and find our minds turning then to our exhausted bodies for solace?

Gertrude Stein Well, we are always the same age on the inside.

Eleanor Roosevelt Beautiful young people are accidents of nature. Beautiful old people are works of art.

Virginia Woolf Well, Talia’s chapter has closed and who would have thought the story to end so nicely? And we certainly have some of the credit to claim there, wouldn’t you say?

Dorothy Parker Well, at least she learned from our mistakes. She didn’t drown herself or end up in an insane asylum, nor did she have an affair with a French aviator.

Gertrude Stein But perhaps we can think that we kept her thinking about life, and reminded her to live it.

Dorothy Parker Well, we gave her something to do in college, anyway.

(They all nod in agreement, take one last look at her, and exit single-file).

Talia, I'm not sure how you intend to format this in your final version, but you do need quotation marks, or italics to separate the speaker from their spoken words.

To italize just use < i > without the spaces and then < / i > at the end of the italized section like this:

Zelda Fitzgerald--- Well, this is America. And Talia may not have been rich but she realized her American Dream. We grew up founding our dreams on American advertising. I still believe you can learn to play piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.


Les

Love it!

Well done, Talia ! Great idea. Excellent compilation. A nice way of bringing out the 'fun' in 'funeral'.

One typo to correct: should be 'thing' not 'think' in that four-liner from Dorothy Parker.

In the last comment from Virginia Woolf, is the first sentence correct? The construction 'thought the story to end' seems a little awkward, but maybe it's an accurate quote from her.

Ian

Just thought I'd let you all know the end result...I got and "A" and even more flattering, Professor asked if she could keep a copy for herslef. Thanks for all of your help. My GPA thanks you, too.

Congrats! I'm sad that you and that French aviator didn't get together, though. (I got a B+/A grade in my Accounting- this quarter it's Finance- sigh)

pam

congratualtions on doing well on what is not interesting. That is worth much more. And the French Aviator left poor Scotty scarred for life.