“Barbie-Q” was a short story written by Sandra Cisneros about two little girls and their imagination when they play with their Barbies. Cisneros shows a glance of poverty from the point of view of the young girls. We can portray the struggle in which people who live in third world countries experience and how different their lifestyles are. By showing us a preview of what it’s like to live in poor conditions, the author is trying to illustrate that we need to be appreciative of what we have as people in a first world countries. Just because we don’t necessarily see the other side of the fence, doesn’t mean it does not exist. Cisneros uses characterization and imagery to develop the story.
Cisneros starts off the short story by putting the
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Cisneros grew up moving between Mexico and America and never allowing her to settle and fully stick to a culture. She also grew up with six brothers making her feel isolated and alone for most of her childhood. This caused Cisneros to subtly include feminism in most of her writings. Cisneros and her family grew up in poverty which she also tends to include in her texts just like Barbie-Q. This short story looks like it imitates her childhood and how she wasn’t very privileged as a child. She often makes references to the family of the girls not being able to afford toys for them, “But that’s all we can afford, besides one extra outfit a piece” (Cisneros, 1991, p.447). This represents her growing up as a kid and how she wasn’t able to get the things she wanted because of her family’s financial situation. Besides not having much toys to play with, she didn't really play with her siblings either because they didn't include her. But, in the story there are two little girls instead of one. It seems like shes trying to picture a lifestyle that she would rather live in that would've been more suitable and less lonely for her. She knew growing up poor wasn't something she could control or to change during her childhood, but another sister would have made it better. Cisneros was surrounded by six brothers which led her to be excluded from activities because she was a girl. This would be the ignition of the feminism found in her