Barbie-Q By Sandra Cisneros Essay

Marge Piercy's poem Barbie Doll tells of a young girl and her experience through adolescence. It illuminates the destruction wreaked when unrealistic expectations and gender limitations become socially acceptable. This poem ends with the tragic suicide of the girl and how only in death did she embody the ideals set by society. Piercy exposes the paradoxical expectations set by American culture through the use of explicit diction, simile, and irony.

Growing up I was always raised in a nice environment. Dinner at our kitchen table, trips to Reno, Six Flags to see the cute dolphins, we had a great bond between our family. When I was in elementary school, my friends and I talked about our families and what we were going to do during the weekend. My classmate told me that he was not able to do anything for the weekend because his parents would always be fighting. Quickly I began to have sympathy for a kid that I knew was a trouble maker. Sandra Cisneros does a great job of revealing the theme of the poem,”My Wicked,Wicked Ways” to the reader 's mind by using connotations and

The title of the story Barbie-Q is very much relevant and important to understand the theme because the main story covers the dream of desire for having Barbie dolls, which their parent can’t afford to buy because of limited resources and money. Their dreams comes true when their parents bought them fire damaged dolls at a lower price. Even though the dolls were damaged but the poverty of the parent contended the girls to be happy with it. The story themes is that people have their wishes, desires for material according to their status in the society. Poor people can be kill their desires with low quality things to pretend they are happy. The Barbie is the doll and “Q” could be reference to fire damaged or a Barbie-Q party environment.

In the essay “The Storyteller”, Sandra Cisneros describes how her identity was shaped by goals that she had for herself. Starting from a young Cisneros dreamt about living in her own silent home that fitted her taste. Years later after coming home from college she still had the dream of living on her own and also with a career goal of becoming a writer. Cisneros determination to follow her dreams was strong, however, her father’s did not agree with the dreams and even had a different idea of what he wanted for her. Even with her father’s wanting her to live at home until marriage, have children or to become a weather woman. Cisneros continues to go after her dream of living on her own. Although Cisneros had conflict with her father’s, she did not let it stop her from reaching those goals that set out for herself in life.

Although it is not always clear, women are constantly being treated as lesser than men. Women and men are approaching equality, but many women are still being treated unfairly. White communities usually pretend that everything is perfect and cover up this problem. Hispanics, on the other hand, often make the mistreatment of women perspicuous. This is portrayed in the novella The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros displays the mistreatment of women in the hispanic culture through the women in Esperanza’s life.

She begs her parents for these dolls, gets them, washes them, and covers up their flaws so they seem as if they came from an actual toy store. The little girl wants to fit in! “We have to make do with your mean-eyed Barbie and my bubblehead Barbie and our one outfit apiece not including the sock dress”, the little girl sees her doll as a measure of wealth. The better and newer the Barbie, the more well-off your family is. The Barbie dolls are causing the little girl to feel insecure so that she needs to make her Barbie’s appear as if they were new. This insecurity may develop over time to a low self-esteem. Society makes it seem that women have to be beautiful, skinny housewives that are dependent on men. Barbie is contributing to these ideals. “Because we don’t have money for a stupid-looking boy doll when we’d both rather ask for a new Barbie outfit next Christmas.” The little girl feels pressured by not having a Ken doll, but at the same time all of the little girls would rather ask for a new outfit with accessories than a new Ken

In the short story ''Barbie Q,'' Sandra Cisneros portrays that Barbie dolls can impact girl's lives as they grow up, and influence the way they act and perceive themselves. These girls grow up in a poor family environment considering that they acquired the rest of the dolls in a toys sale after a store burned down. In ‘‘Barbie Q,’’what is the thematic significance of the damaged dolls after the fire? The girl’s enthusiasm to get the new dolls -when they said that they prefer to receive new doll’s clothes- suggests that the meaning of these Barbie dolls is more than just a new toy. I believe that the damaged dolls exemplifies the way women feel imperfect due to all the criticism they encounter. Understanding the real meaning of the stereotypes surrounding an "acceptable" way of dressing, the smoke and water on the burned dolls, and Barbie’s ‘‘MOD’ern cousin,’’ (Cisneros) contributes to a better analytical interpretation. Beyond poverty, these dolls represent the effects of the stereotypes that society has implemented to women.

“Beauty is not defined by your physical features, it is defined by the heart inside your chest and the love that flows through it.”- Imania Margia. This meaningful quote written by Imania Margia explains the true significance and message shown through both the short story “Barbie” written by Gary Soto and “Pretty Hurts” sang by Beyonce. The short story “Barbie” written by Gary Soto presents a young girl named Veronica who learned from a young age, that in order to be pretty, you must fit standards and stereotypes- Barbie stereotypes. However, when she gets a new Barbie the following Christmas and ends up destroying it, she learns to accept both Barbie dolls. In “Pretty Hurts” sang by Beyonce, the speaker was taught from a young age to care about appearances. Throughout the story the speaker struggles with herself, and she thinks she is not good enough. In the end she comes to realization, and shes says she is finally happy with herself. Between these two sources, the theme; ‘Everybody needs to learn that you are beautiful in your own way, and don’t need to live up to beauty standards’ is shown between the dynamic character of the speaker in “Pretty Hurts” and the motif/symbol of the two Barbies in “Barbie”.

In The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, twelve-year-old Esperanza must navigate through the trials and tribulations that one can associate when encountering young adulthood. Cisneros uses her unique writing style of vignettes to illustrate various themes in her text. The theme that has to be the most prominent thus far, is on the feminist role of Esperanza as a female in her Latin American culture. House on Mango Street is an overall bildungsroman that can be considered to be a feminist work of literature. The bildungsroman is encompassed by various feminist values throughout the text of written work, regarding the particular subject. Cisneros illustrates these feminist views through the creation of several women characters with strong

In almost each of her poem Cisneros shows her energetic, crazy personality. One main topic her poems and personality brings light to the topic “Feminism.” For many years, women have been working hard in order to gain equality with man. Through her poems Cisneros 's has put a light to the things that women fear of saying based on the world 's ideology of a woman. She shows that women aren 't just emotional creatures and can be as wild and sexual as a man. In a loose woman she described that persona doesn 't succumb to the inhibitions placed by society. For most people they could consider her a modern day feminist in the way that she doesn 't let gender 's rules rule her in this

When viewing advertisements, commercials, and marketing techniques in the sense of a rhetorical perspective, rhetorical strategies such as logos, pathos, and ethos heavily influence the way society decides what products they want to purchase. By using these strategies, the advertisement portrayal based on statistics, factual evidence, and emotional involvement give a sense of need and want for that product. Advertisements also make use of social norms to display various expectations among gender roles along with providing differentiation among tasks that are deemed with femininity or masculinity. Therefore, it is of the advertisers and marketing team of that product that initially have the ideas that influence

The poem Barbie doll by Marge Piercy is about a little girl who grows up only to kill herself for not living up to society’s standards. The speaker shows how she had a normal childhood and was happy playing with here baby dolls and toy stove. However, during puberty, her body changed and everyone noticed. She was criticized for her “fat nose and thick legs”. She tried to change by dieting and exercising, but soon tired of doing so. She then cut off her nose and arms in order to please the rest of society. Only at her funeral did people finally say she was pretty. As shown in this poem, the criticism placed on women in our society is a continuously growing problem today. By using imagery, symbolism, and diction, Piercy demonstrates the high standards placed on girls at a very young age.

Although Barbie has conveyed many beliefs through the clothes and jobs she has had, the most controversial belief has been body image. Since first being brought out into the world, Barbie has had an unreasonably shaped body, with a small waist and large breasts. All of Barbie’s body features have impacted the way society expects women to look. But in 2016, Barbie had a dramatic makeover, she was released in different heights and body shapes, making her more suitable to the way women actually look. Barbie’s new look has made a positive impact on young girls and potentially society’s unrealistic expectations of

The story tells the reader about how two girls, each owns a Barbie doll with their one outfit piece and they made a dress out of worn socks for the dolls. One Sunday, they both went to the flea market on Maxwell Street, where the dolls of the other characters in Barbie were sold with lower price as a big toy warehouse was destroyed by fire. They did not mind to buy the dolls at the flea market even though the dolls were flawed, soaked with water and smelled like ashes. Barbie is widely pictured as a successful girl, who is perfect in every way; with her beautiful face, a slim body, nice house, secured job and a handsome boyfriend which is the fancy of every girl. The story tells the reader of the expectancy for women to have this immaculate figure, ignoring the fact that each person has different body fat percentage and body mass index which may affect their sizes and weights. In addition, the story also underlines the verity that it is not a crime for women to have flaws as depicted by Cisneros (1991), “Barbie’s MOD’ern cousin Francie with real eyelashes, eyelash brush included, has a left foot that’s melted a little-so? If you dress her in new ‘Prom Pink’ outfit, satin splendor with matching coat, gold belt, clutch, and hair bow included, so long as you don’t lift her dress right?-who’s to know”(p. 15). Even though

"Overview: 'Barbie Doll'." 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.