Perfection In Marge Piercy's Barbie Doll

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. She dieted and exercised to try and be better and she put a smile on her face to make it all seem okay but, it got tiring and she couldn't do it anymore so she gave up her nose and legs. With that being said it could mean various things so take it as you will. 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.

Society has a huge effect on an individual’s life. Both men and women feel as if it is common to alternate their appearance to please society’s expectations. The poem, “Barbie Doll”, was written by Marge Piercy in the 1960’s. The girl in the poem is forced to be what society expects her to be. This poem has an influential and powerful message for its readers. The two words “Barbie Doll” is an essential part of a little girl’s vocabulary and most every little girl owns a Barbie doll. The doll represents an image of a perfect woman; however, in reality, women should not expect to be perfect. This is a narrative poem which summarizes the life of a young girl.

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.

In Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll,” the girl-child was perceived on the effect that society has expected in women. There stood a hazardous trend that raged in her society causing self-destruction. This comes to comparing the normal to unreal to satisfy on what society begs the girl child to be. This may occur within both genders. However, in the poem “Barbie Doll” it was more likely to occur within a girl gender. Women “theoretically” should be attractive and stay that way, according to the stereotype showed in the poem “Barbie Doll”. This poem explains to the reader the dangers that exist in the society of forcing people, especially women into restrictive roles and ideals. The poet Marge Piercy uses simile, imagery, and symbol to develop the theme of how society remains disapproving people who do not represent the ideal image.

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.

Advertisements: Exposed 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

Looking in a mirror only reflect a person outside and do not capture the beauty that lies within. Some people will look at the mirror and see all the things that needs to be change about themselves. Having this idea to be perfect is a never ending fairy tale. In the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, a young girl feels by changing her looks she can be accepted by others. Piercy demonstrate the importance of body image can have on the young and travel through adult hood.

Barbie is a doll that was introduced in 1959, she took the world by storm with her fashion and changing careers. She greatly influenced pop culture and the thoughts and beliefs of people. Barbie has been involved in many controversies over the years due to her body image and the high body expectations that she sets for young girls. She has had a significant impact on social values by conveying characteristics of female independence. Barbie has had positive and negative influences on fashion, interests and beliefs of a certain year, which continually changed throughout the decades.

Considered very significant to numerous people, happiness and external appearances plays a part in themes of various works. Therefore, these themes of people’s happiness and outward looks are usually ones that many people want to experience. Reading works with these themes can allow the reader to view the subject within the author’s point of view. Poems with these themes lets the readers understand the topic through new eyes, and they may even inspire the reader think about what is truly valuable in life. Two poems that share the themes of happiness and external appearances are Marge Percy’s “Barbie Doll” and Edwin Robinson’s “Richard Cory”. Through these themes of the poems, they show what the minds and lives of those whose lives revolve around

While Marge Piercy (“Barbie Doll”) and James Dickey (“The Leap”) have created poems that are about women who were trounced by society’s pressure, each poem depicts different elements to reflect the narrator’s voice and convey their message. Piercy highlights her character’s struggle with the preconceived vehemence on women’s role in our society from a young age. “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.” (Piercy) On the other hand, Dickey uses nostalgia to describe the character in his poem “fastest runner in seventh grade” (Dickey) and how he remembers the main character. Piercy and Dickey discuss women who choose suicide to escape pressure,

As a little girl you are encouraged to be who you want to be. You fill your world with fairy tales or Barbie dolls that inspire you to believe that the sky is the limit. But little do you know, that as you grow older, the dreams you are forging for yourself is no longer achievable. Where you once saw the sky as the limit is now transformed to be seen as a man’s word as the limit. No little girl, you are not liberated nor are you empowered…you are simply propagated by a man’s world to believe that you are. But where did it all start and how did you get to this position?

Imagine living in a world without diversity, uniqueness, or hope. Everyone would have similar interest, no differences, and no social standards would be set. Unfortunately, in the world, we live in today discrimination exists, if a person who's not powerful or white tried being unique the society would bring down his hopes because he isn't like the normal person. In Sandra Cisneros's "Barbie-Q," and Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven," both of the authors write about the world with no diversity, hope, and role models. Both stories reflection of upper middle white class dominant control and exploit of the poor lower class. Cisneros and Alexie both needed role models because they both didn't see a way to improve

“Barbie Doll”, a hyperbolic poem about the dangers of body dysmorphia, depicts a young female confronted with a

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

As Ruth Rosen explains throughout her book, The World Split Open, the Women’s Rights Movement certainly resulted in significant changes in the way Americans perceived the woman’s role in a variety of situations. From home to academia to politics, the women’s movement helped to make the changes necessary so that women would be respected and treated as equals in any field they chose to pursue. Of the changes that stemmed from the movement in the 1970s, the unity and collaboration that exists among women is one of the most historically significant because of the way it influenced so many women from vastly different lifestyles. To begin, Rosen often discussed the “nameless” problems that plagued women throughout the 1950s and into the 60s. Too often, millions of