ipl-logo

Body Image In Marge Piercy's Barbie Doll

1361 Words6 Pages

Society has created an image that is unrealistic for young women to achieve. In the poem, “Barbie Doll”, written by Marge Piercy, a child is normal until she grows up and hits puberty. The teenage girl receives comments from a classmate about her body and the way it looks. She is a healthy young girl, but she started to believe all these comments and was apologizing for the way she looked. She would beat herself up about not having a body that looked like all the other girls. The young girl tried multiple diets and exercise, but none of them worked. Soon, she began to lose herself, personality was changing and took matters into her own hands. Finally, she reached perfection, but only after she was dead.
The title of the poem really resonates …show more content…

Piercy voices her opinion about the on going stereotyping of young women in social settings. Women are expected to uphold a specific image and perform at a certain level.Throughout the poem, Piercy describes the extreme measures that the young girl took in order to achieve the ideal image that she so longed for. Feminism is strongly implied in this poem. The author describes all the things that is wrong with the young girl based on a guy's comment. Piercy advocates for the young girl voice and rights to look how she wants …show more content…

Symbolism is found in the poem, through the toys that the girl use to play with when she was little. “This girlchild was born as usual and presented dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy”, the author use these toys to symbolize that the girls was a normal little girl (Piercy). The use of these literary devices connect to the social context by measures that women take to accomplish society’s view on a woman's

Show More
Related
499 Words | 2 Pages

This passage is from the book Cinderella Ate My Daughter, by Peggy Orenstein. The overall purpose of this book is to inform the readers of the stereotypes girls must face as adolescents. The author is able to express her opinion as a parent and give advice to other parents with daughters of how to overcome the stereotypes so girls do not succumb to the girly culture that bombards the media. The book touches on Orenstein’s role as a mother to her daughter Daisy and the challenges she faces due to all the stereotypes for young girls. This passage focuses on girls conforming to the stereotype regarding pink is the color for females.

Read More
1809 Words | 8 Pages

The different key features also plays an important role for example the tone that is being formed by the lyrical voice that can be seen as a nephew or niece. This specific poem is also seen as an exposition of what Judith Butler will call a ‘gender trouble’ and it consist of an ABBA rhyming pattern that makes the reading of the poem better to understand. The poem emphasizes feminist, gender and queer theories that explains the life of the past and modern women and how they are made to see the world they are supposed to live in. The main theories that will be discussed in this poem will be described while analyzing the poem and this will make the poem and the theories clear to the reader. Different principals of the Feminist Theory.

Read More
586 Words | 3 Pages

The girl in ‘barbie doll’, wasn’t perfect. She had a big nose and fat legs. Her classmates remind her of this, as does society. She was fine as herself, but others weren’t. They had to pressure into thinking she needs to change.

Read More
459 Words | 2 Pages

This becomes evident in a lack of information about the type of society, and the reader therefore lacks a complete understanding of how the women are oppressed. As a whole, this poem sets forth the idea that female gender is fluid, and asks its readers to questions what it means to be a woman in a male dominant

Read More
707 Words | 3 Pages

The poem Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy is a short poem that talks about a little girl who is born just like any other little girl. She plays with dolls and little ovens and messes around with makeup. She is fine and unbothered with her life till she hits puberty. Around that age she has a classmate tell her “you have a big nose and fat legs.” She was a girl who was healthy, strong, and intelligent but, she was apologizing to everyone for what they saw.

Read More
582 Words | 3 Pages

The topic of self confidence is a subject that is heavily discussed when it comes to girls of all ages. Journalist, Stephanie Hanes, examines the current trend of sexualization amongst young girls. In the article “Little Girls or Little Women: The Disney Princess Effect”, Hanes examines the current trend of sexualization amongst girls. She addresses the issue of desiring to become a women too soon. Hanes develops her article by using the literary techniques of pathos and logos to describe the emotions young girls feel when they see images of women with unattainable features.

Read More
802 Words | 4 Pages

The poem Barbie doll by Marge Piercy is about a little girl who grows up only to kill herself for not living up to society’s standards. The speaker shows how she had a normal childhood and was happy playing with here baby dolls and toy stove. However, during puberty, her body changed and everyone noticed. She was criticized for her “fat nose and thick legs”. She tried to change by dieting and exercising, but soon tired of doing so.

Read More
506 Words | 3 Pages

Although Barbie has conveyed many beliefs through the clothes and jobs she has had, the most controversial belief has been body image. Since first being brought out into the world, Barbie has had an unreasonably shaped body, with a small waist and large breasts. All of Barbie’s body features have impacted the way society expects women to look. But in 2016, Barbie had a dramatic makeover, she was released in different heights and body shapes, making her more suitable to the way women actually look. Barbie’s new look has made a positive impact on young girls and potentially society’s unrealistic expectations of

Read More
500 Words | 2 Pages

She breaks her thoughts down in order to show the indifference. She says that women are first portrayed as objects; this patriarchal society sees us as mere bodies. Thus, we are either regarded as objects or as bodies; the mind does not exists here. Here, the subjectivity does not lie in the mind, but within the body. Women’s sole purpose is to be that of another subject’s intentions and manipulations.

Read More
606 Words | 3 Pages

I believe that the damaged dolls exemplifies the way women feel imperfect due to all the criticism they encounter. Understanding the real meaning of the stereotypes surrounding an "acceptable" way of dressing, the smoke and water on the burned dolls, and Barbie’s ‘‘MOD’ern cousin,’’ (Cisneros) contributes to a better analytical interpretation. Beyond poverty, these dolls represent the effects of the stereotypes that society has implemented to women. At first, the Barbie dolls in better conditions with fancy clothes enacts the way society thinks that women are materialistic and egocentric. This relates to the moment the girls call Ken a ‘‘stupid-looking doll,’’ (Cisneros) they prioritize clothes and they would rather have new clothes for

Read More
1480 Words | 6 Pages

Women have social pressures to conform to particular ways of behaving and looking. The pressures are so huge not all women are aware of such situations. The women are so use to living to conformed ways we label the ones who actually act normal as “weird and abnormal”. Piercy shows how we are unconscious of what’s happening, how a regular girl that is going through puberty judge so badly for being normal. Our social and cultural construct on women’s values society has created has only been about making a profit.

Read More
1108 Words | 5 Pages

Your decisions to comply with society’s view of “beauty” are no longer subconscious, but rather are more conscious-driven decisions. Barbie’s slender figure remains idolized; however, it has evolved from a plastic doll to a self-starving model that is photo-shopped on the pages of glossy magazines. You spend hours in front of a mirror adjusting and perfecting your robotic look while demanding your parents to spend an endless amount of money on cosmetics and harmful skin products to acquire a temporary version of beauty. Consider companies such as Maybelline, which have throughout the ages created problematic and infantilizing campaigns and products for women. More specifically consider the “Baby Lips” product as well as the company slogan, “maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline,” that reiterates the male notions of beauty to which women are subjected.

Read More
1455 Words | 6 Pages

In comparison to Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”, these response poems convey two different viewpoints from the mistress and in my reasoned opinion, provide a deeper scope to the objectification and mistreatment of women in poetry. This can be seen through evidence and supported by exposing the overall attitude of the speakers, issues of gender in each work, each poem’s language, the overall tone of each work, the form of each poem, and through each speaker’s responses to “Big Famous Lines” presented in “To His Coy Mistress”.

Read More
762 Words | 4 Pages

This is shown in the opening line when she says, “If you grow up the type of women...” Throughout this poem, Kay explores the themes of empowerment and identity, through the use of repetition and connotation. Through the frequent use of repetition, Kay puts emphasis on how women are defined in relation to males. Additionally, she also uses connotation to remind women they are more than what they are perceived to be in relation to others and they have the power to define themselves. Therefore the main idea of the poem is to perhaps remind women of their worth and inspire them to define themselves on their own terms, and not through the eyes of men or in comparison/relation to their relationship with others.

Read More
904 Words | 4 Pages

Society’s superficial viewing of women is also reflected in the poem’s wring, as it may seem that this poem is strictly concerned with a prostitute, but in fact it describes all females. The male representative in the poem, Georges, then asserts his superiority, despite their similar conditions of being poor. Although he is sexually attracted to her as he “stiffens for [her] warmth”, suggesting an erection, he is unwilling to accept her as a human being as he deems her question “Why do you do this?”

Read More

More about Body Image In Marge Piercy's Barbie Doll

Related Topics

Open Document