Popular Culture Review Vol. 23, No. 1, Winter 2012 | Page 76

72 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