The Girl In Marge Piercy's Barbie Doll

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.

Many girls dream of their knight in shining armor, a perfect wedding, and a happily ever after ending. Disney princesses give them hope to find love and happiness along with emphasizing their want for the beauty and grace princesses illustrate. Authors of “Cinderella and Princess Culture” and “The Princess Paradox,” Peggy Orenstein and James Poniewozik respectively, agree that most girls like princesses. However, these articles convey differing parental opinions on lessons girls learn from princesses and the unfavorable effects this has at their young age. Orenstein describes her negative views on princesses through her experiences with her daughter and the knowledge of Andy Mooney’s business decisions on princesses.

The said to be nature and source of the problem with adolescent girls are the fairy tales that are read to those girls at a young age. “Fairy tales capture the essence of this phenomenon,” (Pipher 12). These fairy tales show adolescent girls that if you go through a life threatening situation your prince charming will come to save you. It also teaches girls that through all of this they transform into “passive and docile creatures” (14-15).

8 year old Britney describes the pain as worse than falling off a bike or losing a tooth. The mother claims that the Botox will help her child to keep up with other beauty pageants; she is sure that other mothers give the children Botox too. However, what she doesn’t know is that Botox can lead to muscle weakness, bruising, headaches, fevers and

An op-ed contributor author for The New York Times magazine, Lisa Selin Davis writes about the struggle of what her daughter has to go through on a daily basis due to her being mistaken for being a little boy due to the way she dresses. Lisa considers that her daughter is just a tomboy and not a transgender as you could tell by the title. Since the question gets brought up everywhere she goes, Lisa has become frustrated because she doesn’t want her daughter to have to go through the taunting at school when she knows for herself that she is, in fact, a girl. I will be analyzing the key elements of persuasive writing in the article that I chose. The author 's kairos is that she talks about this topic is being brought up at her daughter place

My mother let me listen to its heartbeat and feel it kicking against her, and I started looking forward to seeing this baby. I hoped it would be a girl, and I would have a sister,” (page 135). Sal is now excited for the baby and ready to have a sibling. She wants a little sister and in the book her mom, her dad, and her got to decorate the baby’s nursery. Everyone was really excited for the baby, especially Sal.

While many young girls love the princesses and look up to them, others view these characters as negative role models. Disney Princesses have always appeared in movies as young women who dress in elegant gowns, have sexy bodies and perfect hair. They are always paired with a prince who lives in a castle, meaning that he has a lot of money. This description of what the Disney Princess is like; give us a big concern in the influence this image is giving to the little girls. Unfortunately, what girls learn as children carries on into adulthood.

“Two Kinds” a short story out of Amy Tan’s book “The Joy Luck Club” is a representation of the pressures immigrant children face from their parents. In the story, we follow a young girl named Jing-Mei as she embarks down the road to becoming a Prodigy. Her mother believed that “you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (Tan). For Jing-Mei that meant her mother believed she could become instantly famous. “Of course, you can be a prodigy, too”, her mother told her (Tan).

But after purchasing it, Lisa realizes that the doll represents “the perfect woman” to society but is an unrealistic role model to young girls. The writers of the episode use invective, irony, and hyperboles to reveal that the media and corporate America make sexist statements about the role of a woman. This can have negative effects, like low self esteem, on the mind of young girls who are

In Marge Piercy’s poem, Barbie Doll, she reminds young adults that the must have childhood toy was a Barbie Doll. Barbie, at one point, became so popular that every little girl was dying to have one. One main points of the short poem was asking the reader to examine what comes to mind when you think of a Barbie doll? Most will say a toy from a previous childhood. The overall view of this poem is about a girl who was born not like everyone else and she never gets a chance to make her own decisions in life.

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.

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.

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.

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.