Society has such a great influence on our daily lives. It can pressure us to conform to what is considered acceptable and affects your role as an individual. When faced with everyday dealings with society, we silence our pain as a way of coping with our emotions. The individuals in Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll,” Sylvia Plath’s “Metaphors,” and Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving but Drowning” suffered the pain of feeling lost or unheard because of the pressures from society. These three poems show us how our society can affect the way we view ourselves and bring pain and isolation into our lives. Marge Piercy recognized the agony of one’s isolation when others would criticize the image of ourselves. When you hear the word “Barbie Doll” we think of …show more content…
In her short poem, “Not Waving but Drowning,” was published in 1957 and consisted of only twelve lines broken up into three stanzas. Smith uses repetition of the line “Not Waving but Drowning,” to enforce a much deeper meaning of the mans inner struggle with the ongoing daily pressures of his life and his desperate unanswered call for help. Smith uses her protagonist’s call for help being mistaken for waving, to suggest that there is a conflict with the protagonist and society. In line one of the first stanza, the speaker states “Nobody heard him,” this gives focus to the fact that the ones around him mistook his waving for drowning (287). Smith suggests that the man went through his life unheard and alone. He never spoke up and eventually when he does, the onlookers did not realize that he was not waving but drowning. In stanza three line eleven, the speaker states “I was too far out all my life,” suggesting that he was not only dying in that moment but throughout his entire life (288). He always felt isolated and alone, but he had to hide his true feelings to make his public self-more natural. The speaker created a mask and it became deceptive that his friends and family members were not able to see through until it was too