Poetry Speed Dating: Barbie Doll, By Marge Piercy

In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, Jing-mei discovers herself though rebellion. As the daughter of an immigrant, she feels pressured by her mother to follow the American dream by being a child prodigy. However, as she fails at task after task, Jing-mei’s hopeful attitude shifts. Abandoning her positivity, she determines to underperform at everything she attempts. Jing-mei evolves from an optimistic girl to a spiteful rebel as a defense mechanism against her mother’s pressure, carrying her rebellious identity until she reaches peace later in adulthood.

She clutches at a toy society claims she should have already outgrown. Her eyes are described as “cautious… depthless, as if they’ve been torn from the inside out by tiny needles and pins.” As goes the expression, the eyes are the windows to the soul. This passage indicates that Clara has lived through a lot, and her innocence is lost. The reader is left to guess at what could cause a reclusive child such pain until the end of the novel when her kidnapping is detailed.

These well-known characters purposely stand on opposite ends of the pole, together with all they represent. On one end, there is the virginal and almost childlike heroine, and on the other, the mature and sexually threatening stepmother. Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S. Silber, the authors of the article: “Good and Bad Beyond Belief: Teaching Gender Lessons through Fairy Tales and Feminist Theory,” claim that in the absence of the heroine’s true and righteous mother, her pathological stepmother is “the only available, living ‘model’ of feminine maturity” (124). However, since the stepmother is put under harsh social criticism, the heroine is likely to associate herself with “the passive, feminine identity of the first queen, avoiding any identification with the active principle embodied in the characterization of the bad mother/witch” (Fisher and Silber 124). Such is the case of the tale of “Snow-white,” in which we only see the good queen when working on her embroidery, (considered a typical female activity) and wishing for a child (Grimm 215).

This eventually leads her to challenge her self concepts to extreme levels, causing her to either liberate herself from the façade she created or sink into the role. Easy A describes many genuine psychological phenomena and I am going to focus on three of them; Cognitive dissonance theory, how societal and cultural norms dictate our attitudes and thoughts, and different ways of persuasion. The cognitive dissonance theory is the feeling of unease that is felt when we act in opposition to our attitudes, which causes a shift of attitude in order to be consistent with our behavior. Easy A depicts strongly the theory of cognitive dissonance on numerous occasions.

From the very beginning of the novel Jane has the courage to defy her aunt when she is unfairly punished in the red room. The cultural and social context of the age must be taken into account when analyzing such behavior. At the time, Jane Eyre’s gesture of talking back to people was totally improper, because women especially poor ones were expected to meekly accept their lot in life. But she cannot keep quiet and merely accept her condition as a poor orphan, because at the end of her discourse, she feels her soul begin "to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt... as if an invisible bond had burst and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty". This is the beginning of a spirit that Jane carries forward into her future relationships with men, beginning with the detestable Mr.

One aspect of Lolita that transcends both school and home life is her ability to play duplicitous roles. Lolita is an actress at school, despite Humbert’s wishes. Similarly, at home Lolita acts as an innocent child who teases Humbert to get what she wants, or she can scheme with intention to escape. The dichotomy of Humbert’s reality appears further in his forcation of children to be idols of perfection. Here it is clear that Lolita is truly about the pursual of art and unattainable beauty, here in the form of a child (Mergerle 342).

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.”

This chapter takes into consideration the representation of problematic mother-daughter relationships described from the daughters’ standpoint. Firstly, it examines the portrayal of an engulfing religious mother who cannot accept her daughter’s lesbian nature in Oranges Are not the Only Fruit (1985) by English author Jeanette Winterson. Secondly, it discusses the destructive force of sick maternal bonds as depicted in the novel Sharp Objects (2006) by American writer Gillian Flynn. The main objectives of the analysis will be to focus on how mothers’ engulfing attitudes towards their daughters are represented in narrative fiction, to observe how maternal behaviour influences the child’s personal development and well-being, and to identify the space given to mothers’ and daughters’ subjectivities in the novels.

The short story “Section 8” by Jaquira Diaz is about a young adult, Nena, struggling to accept her feelings towards her friend Boogie. Further hindering the young woman is the unsupportive environment she finds herself in where just about everyone’s family has either physically or emotionally abandoned them. The story ends with Nena finally standing up the bullies who’ve been attacking Boogie- however Boogie herself rejects Nena, leaving her to imagine a life where the situation ended happily. Not only does the story leave a large impact on the reader, but it also leaves the music of poetry singing in one’s ears throughout the text by the use of consonance. The repetitive use of consonance and internal rhyme are scattered throughout the story, although the most impactful and noticeable would be the very first line of the text.

In the short story “The Possibility of Evil” written by Shirley Jackson the main protagonist, Miss Adela Strangeworth demonstrates multiple traits of her complex personality through her actions, thoughts and the way she communicates. A couple of these traits that are significant to her character are insensitivity and masquerading. Imagine an insanely insensitive person who does not care how others feel. Miss Stangeworth’s unpleasant letters advocate her observations rather than facts or feelings. In a letter she writes anonymously to the Crane family saying “DIDN’T

Seconds after the nurse comes out and takes away Daisy’s child. Nick Caraway then says, “With a reluctant backward glance the well disciplined child held to her nurse’s hand and was pulled out the door,”(Fitzgerald 106). This event in the novel is critical in portraying Daisy’s inadequacy as a mother and her shallowness as an individual. Daisy treats her daughter like an object only to be brought out when it 's convenient to her liking. She parades her daughter to her guests and then sends her off showing her disregard for her child.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is about a lady made crazy by post pregnancy anxiety and a hazardous treatment. However,, an examination of the protagonist’s portrayal shows that the story is generally about character. The protagonist’s projection of a fanciful lady, which at first is just her shadow, against the bars of the wallpaper shows her personality, disguising the contention she is dealing with and in the end prompting the entire breakdown of the limits of her character and that of her shadow. Continually alone and not allowed to abandon her room, the absence of something to involve her time makes the protagonist very confused. With blocked windows, the room is very similar to a jail.

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.

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.

Barbie: The Plastic Insecurity In Marge Piercy’s Barbie Doll, the author tries to bring awareness to an issue because of the overwhelming social pressures and insecurities, one girl has that causes her to commit suicide. The classic Barbie doll came out in 1959 and this poem was published in 1971 giving only 12 years for the Barbie doll to be out on the market and have an impact on little girls. In Piercy’s poem, as the girlchild is growing up, she is given all the toys girls today get, toy dolls, GE stoves, irons, and lipsticks (Piercy). All the things she will need to be “successful” as a woman.