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Popular Culture Review
Dardanella, oh, hear my sigh, my Oriental,
Oh sweet Dardanella, prepare the wedding wine
There’ll be one girl in my harem, when you’re mine.
We’ll build a tent just like the other. (Edwards)
How incongruous to compare the sheltered, introspective Laura, fragile and
shy, to a “harem” girl. But callow Jim has no intention of committing to love as
the singer does—“There’ll be one girl in my harem, when you’re mine.” Laura
may be recast as the “lonesome Armenian maid” in “Dardanella,” but Jim is
hardly her heart-broken paramour. When Laura confesses to him that she has
been playing her victrola, Jim responds: “Must have been playing classical
music on it! You ought to play a little hot swing music to warm you up!” (198).
As Nic