Is Barbie-Q By Sandra Cisneros Point Of View Of A Woman

Since the dawn of time, expectations and stereotypes have been placed on women that limit them. Among these expectations are maximizing their femininity, or nulling it. The latter is the case in the short story by Sandra Cisneros, “Barbie-Q”, where the narrator's point-of-view while at a flea market with her family, searching for decent remaining toys after a toy warehouse fire, suggests that growing up in a male-dominated society destroys and forever alters women’s view of themselves. Cisneros uses the symbolism of destroyed dolls, typical “men's items” overcrowding the space, and the description of needing to search for pieces of feminine toys. This story of a young girl is set at a smoke-filled, loud, and cluttered flea market. While she is searching for the piles of items for something

As mentioned in the story, this market is happening mostly because of the fire at the toy warehouse. However, when described by the narrator as she walks through, it seemed packed full of tools, cleaning supplies, and food. Most of this is unsafe for, let alone directed towards a young girl, a young child, or a woman in any regard. Nonetheless, all of these items overcrowd the toys and dolls supposedly in abundance because of the warehouse fire. While searching for dolls in the crowd, our narrator makes it known the conditions of the dolls. She also lets us readers know what could be done to hide it; The quote “So what if our Barbies smell like smoke…even after you wash and wash and wash them”(206.6) describes in detail a damaged doll, and notes that even if you were to “wash and wash and wash” it would never be the same as a new, in-the-package doll. This effectively symbolizes the standard at which women are held to, clean and untouched by anything that devalues them, and only to be handled by an owner that may or may not keep her