Barbie doll as being a popular icon in American culture continues to be carried has a long history. However , it is also a questionable toy that often critic by simply its unrealistic body image as well as the women belief imposed on her behalf. Marge Piercy’s poem presents the topic about can certainly loss of self-esteem and the coercion of exterior forces throughout the Barbie dolls. This conventional paper aims to take a textual research of the subject matters and pictures the author’s view by a critical perspective. Irony and satiric develop are also used to boost the existing trend of twisted social and cultural values through the poem.
Starts with an unfamiliar word “girlchild”, the author stresses the infant’s biological male or female, which seems to degrade your gender identification. The girl was developed with nothing especially and received a typical toy, hence leaving the girl a conventional position and not far off prospect of a female personality. For example , the doll was carried with “miniature stoves” and “iron”, symbolizes her domestic role”a household performed in the kitchen. Besides, the word “miniature” and “wee lipsticks” suggest the “normal” image in the adult makes world in miniature. Using a potentially patriarchal value, the adult makes women to remain inside, in the home or inside the restricted space. Then the girl came to growing up, the strengthen here started to be sharp and ironic with all the word “magic”. She was mocked since “a huge nose” and “fat legs” by her classmates. Throughout the puberty, the lady has possessed intelligence and judgement, but most ideas and way of doing something is derived from the adult. As a result teenagers begin to care even more about their presence. Sadly their notion of beauty continues to be twisted by the conventional values.
In the second stanza, the girl developed mentally and physically, although prejudice or biased sights of beauty have changed her believed and inspired her ideals. The young woman experienced a sense of sense of guilt and stated apologies regarding her not perfect appearance. Right here we find the poet’s critique that people often prioritize women’s superficial perspective rather than their particular intrinsic characteristics. This preconception has as luck would have it forced your woman to apologize for “her own mistake”. Although both equally stanzas two and 3 begin with the niche “she”, the lady characters have been completely divided into two kinds in her lifestyle. In the stanza three, the lady was advised to act while the one in line with social value, and became one who she’s not. Sooner or later her great nature was “worn out like a lover belt”. The simile right here presents an image of a equipment with equipment, because the ladies good character doesn’t work or fit for the machine (social expectation). Again and again it was busted apart by any means. As essential as the tone should go, the poet moves the poem to a climax: the woman cut off her legs and offered their self up, to be able to meet the sociable conventions. Her good mother nature depleted, her physical function damaged and she became the victim of the interpersonal oppression. It sounds absurd and shocking when the girl mutilated herself. Yet , this kind of disaster actually takes place in today’s contemporary society as well, for example, people tend to go through plastic-type or plastic surgery to make themselves look better. In fact , what the poet person tries to address to is a issue of social ideals and its impact on the shaping of the youth’s behavior.
In the last stanza, the “physical mutilated” girl lied in the casket with her “putty nose”, beautiful make-up and elaborated dressed in “pink and white nightie”. She viewed pretty in others’ eye. It attracts reader’s attention that the “nightie” here has its own sexual metaphors, which implies that the girl was offended possibly after she was lifeless. Furthermore, the “casket” could be understood like a pun: a coffin to bury the girl’s dead man remains, or a small case for jewels and other possessions. On one hand, the woman was obviously dead and laid inside the casket, the “stain” was just like a winding sheet to hide her human body. On the other hand, the lady was given an additional life with a pretty physical appearance that fulfills the social expectation, and she was on display in the casket just like a treasure using a satin. At the end, Piercy incongruously and unfortunately creates a fairy tale “happy ending”: the girl is in such a doll-like animal, pretty nevertheless lifeless. The author presents the happy ending is not just intended for the girl personality but for most women too, as if every women condemned to experience this: willing to get a beauty actually at the cost of death.
The poem reads just like a gothic experience full of sarcasm in a gloomy tone. Piercy shares her sharp although sad sense towards the sociable pressures for the women while using reader. In the poem we see how the society and family play a dominant position in framing behavior. Women’s conventional role, appearance as well as the ignorance of their intrinsic characteristics all have got impacted on their growth. Even though the narrative in Piercy’s poem reads a lttle bit exaggerated, the similar situation actually continually happen however in different ways. Hence, Piercy’s poem revokes your readers to re-examine women’s correct in the culture which is dominated by the patriarchy, and also driven by the profit.
