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Barbie doll by marge piercy analysis
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" Poetry for Students, edited by Ira Mark Milne, vol. 9, Gale, 2000. Literature Resource Center, http://www.northeaststate.edu:2061/apps/doc/H1430005138/GLS?u=tel_a_nestcc&sid=GLS&xid=d074d68c. Accessed 1 Mar. 2018. Piercy, Marge. “Barbie Doll.”
In “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy and “Homage to My Hips” by Lucille Clifton, women are presented with societal expectations for their gender. The girl in “Barbie Doll” is told that she has “a great big nose and fat legs.” In the following stanza, the girl is described as healthy, intelligent, strong, and a number of other positive qualities. When the comments about her nose and legs continue, she is encouraged to lose weight, smile, and be pursued by males in order to be of worth. She loses her former good qualities in exchange for society’s standards for perfection.
In this essay, I will explore the themes of various poems from “Kinky”, by Denise Duhamel. The poems “The Limited Edition Platinum Barbie” and “One Afternoon When Barbie Wanted to Join the Military”, reflect upon the oppressive beauty standards and gender expectations in our culture and hyperbolize them to a dystopian point. Duhamel uses Barbie as a metaphor throughout these poems, and addresses our culture’s misogyny, while making Barbie a first person character and giving her a voice. The poem “The Limited Edition Platinum Barbie” critiques our culture’s narrow standard of beauty. Our society is consumed by the fantasy and perfection of the idealized body.
The poem "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy has a profound meaning to it. After reading it a couple of times, I found the theme by analyzing multiple things. I figured out the theme because of the author's use of figurative language and the outcome of her plot. The theme that I discovered was; people change people for the better or for, the worse, but it is upon them how they take it in.
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.
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.”
The freedom of being able to change Barbie’s clothes into her various wardrobes sold gives the young children playing with her the sense of individuality. Although Barbie has brought a lot of controversy to the table within the years it has been on the shelf, her portrayal has not changed because after all she is just a doll,
Barbie and a Child’s Development Throughout the years, society has associated beauty with what is on the outside; however, true beauty is not related to a person’s hair or eye color. Iconic figures, like Barbie, shape a child’s self-awareness of herself and others. A Barbie doll represents a conventionally attractive young woman that lacks intellectual abilities. Such figures misrepresent societal norms and should be banned, especially during the growing part of a young child’s development. Even though society has determined what its idea of beauty is, a person’s true beauty is based upon morals and principals; it is not all about being made out of plastic.
Many people in today’s society face the challenge of self-acceptance. They either are criticized by the way they look or struggle to be who they really are without getting any criticism by society. Janice Mirikitani’s “Suicide Note” and Margie Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” are two poems that have speakers who struggle with the expectations of society. Although the tone of these two poems and the symbolism are disparate, each poems character has difficulty accepting themselves because of what others expect them to be.
Barbie dolls extend girls an invitation to a ‘‘plastic society’’ that doesn't accept the genuineness each of us possesses. They present a role model impossible to accomplish. The characters didn't have names, they could hold a symbolic representation of society’s judgment. The girls had the first dolls just like they wanted, but they desired to cover all of the imperfections on the dolls damaged in the fire with new clothes such as the ‘‘Prom Pink outfit’’ (Cisneros). Thereupon, no one would notice the
Women are characterized to be a particular way since they are constantly being prejudiced on the basis of their gender. They are expected to dress a certain way, act in one way as opposed to another, take care of a family, and be able to cook. This prejudice is prevalent across the globe, whether in America, as depicted by the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, or in Antigua as described by the prose “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid. Even though there is a great similarity between the social pressures faced by women in both America and Antigua, American women are greatly judged on a physical level, while in Antigua, women are predominantly judged on their capability to completing household chores.
The poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy suggests that girls are fatally and ultimately entrapped by society's definition of what feminine beauty and behavior is. In our society we believe that women should be perfect. We want women to be as flawless as a Barbie doll and in doing so we create many struggles for women because no one can ever achieve that goal. The poem gives off a sense of irony when “society” compares a young girl to a Barbie doll. Our society has an ideal that was created by the influences of popular media and culture that is impossible for anyone to reach.
The Poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy was a very interesting poem to read. It was one of those poems that people can either really decipher the meaning or not understand what the author is trying to express. This poem is about a young girl who is born normal just like everybody else but puberty wasn’t too kind to her and neither were her peers. Just because she didn’t look perfect they chose to ridicule her. Then she finally decided she wasn’t good enough to meet everyone’s expectations, so she committed self- destruction.
