Body Image In Marge Piercy's Barbie Doll

Barbie has been a popular toy doll for just about fifty years now and has changed the image of what people see as 'beautiful '. Being a blonde, long legged, thin frame, busty female in this world is not very common. Women can come from many different shapes and sizes and no matter what females should

Marge Piercy’s “ Barbie Doll” establishes the character to be a young girl who hits the stage of puberty and is then subjected to people's hurtful words that destroy her body image. Before these words she seemed to be a normal little girl playing with all the right toys. The words spoken were with intent to help the girl change her physical appearance so she could be a better version of herself, but in the end the girl felt there was no other option. She could never make everyone happy.

As many other people in this world, Piercy suffered from depression. “She did not fit any image of what women were supposed to be like.” (“Marge Piercy: Biography”). Perhaps “Barbie Doll” had been written from her own personal experience to show what she had gone through as a teenager growing up in society? In Piercy’s biography, it says that, “She went from a pretty and healthy child into a skeletal creature with blue skin give to fainting.”

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”.

For many young girls the Disney princesses serve as idols. Nevertheless, not for every girl it is possible to identify with a princess. In this essay I am going to express the color symbolism in Disney princess movies and what causes this might have on young children, especially girls. Disney’s use of a binary color system in their princess movies has an impact on girl’s creation

Kristina Starr Professor McGhee English 152 23 September 2014 Insecurity In her poem “Barbie Doll”, Marge Piercy illustrates the way in which society sets unachievable standards for children, particularly young girls. In the beginning of the poem, the “girlchild” lives her life without a care in the world. As she advances into her teenage years, she is told how to act and how to look.

The statement, “Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great nose and fat legs” implies that the girl is coming of age. She is beginning to mature and her body is transforming into adolescent through puberty. Puberty changes the way she sees herself. Since the classmate makes the statement about her nose and legs, the girl has focus her attention on her self-image and she knows that her legs and nose are changing; however, she does not understand the changes. The girl sees her self-image as disgusting.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the words “Barbie Doll” is one of my favorite childhood toys. The main character of this poem is a young girl who was born in a judgmental world. She never had the opportunity to feel satisfied or happy with herself. She was trying to please others and make a way for herself to accept and feel confident within.

In the poem “Barbie Doll”, written by Marge Piercy, there is a clear theme of the expectations of women in society. The poem starts by talking about a girl that was normal until she was judge when she hit puberty for having, “A great big nose and fat legs” (Piercy 533). This comment follows her for the rest of her life, until it is implied that she could no longer take the harsh criticism she felt from the world “her good nature wore out”, and because of this, she committed suicide “she cut off her nose and her legs/ and offered them up” (Piercy 534). Finally when she dies, everyone comments how pretty she looks, and the poem finishes with, “To every woman a happy ending” (Piercy 534).

Marge Piercy used being a woman and pressure of beauty during her time, of the 1970s, to bring about a poem that tells the story of a woman who has to change for society to be called pretty. The poem

In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, I related to the character Lily Owens right at chapter one. In the first chapter of this novel, Lily was describing herself as a visual for readers. While Lily was briefly explaining her physical appearance, the line, “…Even the boys who wore their hair in ducktails dripping with Vitalis and carried combs in their shirt pockets didn’t seem to attracted to me, and they were considered hard up” (Monk Kidd 9), relates to many young girls. I, as a teenager, criticize myself very harshly just because a boy may not like me and that is what Lily is doing in this passage. I feel that Lily feeling this type of way and expressing it helped me to connect to her right from the beginning and put myself into her shoes

Society turns these standards into norms and soon women who don’t meet these norms stands out. Women fell the need to meet these norms with the hopes of not being

Both authors agree that society's definition of beauty is not realistic. In pearcys poem Barbie Doll.the girl ends up committing suicide because people focused to much on her looks. When she was born she was a usial baby until she went through puberty she was told she had a fat nose and fat legs.in the poem it says “everyone saw a fat nose and thick legs. This figurative language shows us that people focused to much on her imperfections. this evidence soports my claim beacuse even though girl was healthy and strong, this show that everyone focused on her fat legs had big nose and this displays that the definition of beauty is not realistic To add on she was given alot of advise to look prittier but instead she chosse suicide.

In the article “Plastic, Fantastic Barbie” by Amy Goldman Kass she rebuttals against the war on the Barbies that girls around the world have loved since the beginning of their 54-year career. Koss defends the physical stature of Barbie saying that “Kids don’t care about Barbie’s proportions; they just appreciate that she’s older than they are and can therefore take greater risks and have wilder adventures.” (Kass 1) She makes that point that children don’t necessarily care about what their dolls look like they just want something pretty to play with. The majority of little girls don’t look at Barbie and immediately want to have her body if anything they look at her make-up and clothes, which are entirely obtainable for anything.

Lachlan Pettigrew Max Yelsa Blake Zimmerman A Cultural Synthesis Essay Have you ever thought about the love and culture your family brought you as a child? What they give you lets you develop a sense of identity in our changing world. In the following essay you will read excerpts from two pieces of writing that show how a child develops with and without their cultural identity. A child is lost without their heritage, and strives to find it, whether that be as an adult or when they are still young. In An Indian Father’s Plea, and essay by Robert Lake, the father writes a letter to the teacher speaking about his son.