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Margie Piercy's Barbie Doll

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Introduction: The Definition of Barbie Doll is " A doll representing a conventionally attractive women ." Poet Margie Piercy published the poem " Barbie Doll." The poem starts with a "girlchild" who is brought into the world and presented with expectations of things girls must live up to.
Stanza 1 : 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. Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs.
Line 1: "This girlchild was born as usual." In the first line it brings up the fact that she was born as "usual" this is to show its nothing out of the ordinary, everybody else comes into the world the same. …show more content…

Its seems in the poem that girls do not have the choice of toys they get to play with. The toys that the girlchild get start with wee or mini. There just smaller than what the adult women uses.
Lines 5-6 : "Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs." The poet uses sarcasm when she says the magic of puberty. Puberty happens to be a difficult time for girls they start to become insecure. The girlchild is being made fun of because she looks different than the typical …show more content…

Doesn't she look pretty? Everyone said. Consummation at last. To every woman a happy ending.
Lines 19-20: "In the casket displayed on satin she lay with the undertakers cosmetics painted on." After the girl has mutilated her body to please the others she now lies dead in her casket. It's not an actual death it represent the death of her girlchild. She has killed the person she really is.
Lines 21-22: "turned up putty nose, dressed in a pink and white nightie." The girl now has her new nose the others wanted to see. And she wearing a pink and white nightie to show off her new skinny legs. This gives a visual that makes her more attractive then she was.
Line 23-25: "Doesn’t she look pretty? Everyone said consummation at last. To every women a happy ending. The poem really shows that after the girl has changed her life for the satisfaction of others. The only complement they could muster up is doesn't she look pretty?" The girl had been ridiculed for most of her life only to have that as a compliment. Overall this girl endeared a life of ridicule only to change and still the " Others" are not

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The end of the poem you see her in a casket with a new nose and makeup and essentially she looks like a doll. Everyone who is there to see her comments on how pretty she. She is said to now have a happy ending. This poem talks about how this girl was just an innocent girl who didn't have any issues with herself till she reached a certain age.

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In the first stanza, the speaker develops a cheerful tone through an internal rhyme scheme which she later juxtaposes as she denounces this corruption of innocence. The rhyme centered around a long “e” sound creates a sense of childish innocence, which corresponds to the description of a girl’s birth and adolescent years spent playing with toys. The girl is free from the criticism of the outside world and lives a sheltered and protected life. However, even the toys reaffirm societal expectations, as she plays with, “miniature GE

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With the constant fear of ridicule and discrimination, we still try and define ourselves, though we are always under the society’s scope. Marge Piercy, in her poem “Barbie Doll”, gives us a look at the influence of our surroundings and how something as innocent as a doll can trigger these insecurities. Our strive for acceptance and “perfection” can cause major emotional damage on anyone who identifies as a woman. Young girls look at these depictions of “perfect” bodies, such as a barbie doll for example, and compare themselves. In the poem “Barbie Doll”, Piercy talks about a young girl who she described as “...healthy, tested and intelligent...” (247) but, she was picked on by peers who said she had “a great big nose and fat legs.”

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In the poem “Barbie Doll”, Marge Piercy uses understatement, irony, and symbolism to convey the theme of unrealistic standards, and how society always expects women to be their specific definition of perfect.

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For example, the first stanza creates the image of a little girl playing with the usual toys, like the baby born dolls (the dolls that did pee-pee), mini GE stoves, and makeup. Female readers can easily relate to playing with these toys as children. They are the typical toys given to girls at a young age, which is the point of presenting this information. It shows the girl was brought up like usual, which makes it seem like the ending of the poem could also become commonplace. It also gives a good visual representation of her body at the funeral when the speaker says she has a “turned up putty nose”, which makes the girl seem both perfect and fake.

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