"Barbie Girl"-Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy 

 She was born into a small family affected by the depression in 1936.  During this time the economy was going through a depression, and because of this she accredits her becoming a poet to her mother.  She described her mother as an  imaginative and independent women.  These are traits of women Piercy often conveys in her poetry.

Barbie Doll

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.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

Piercy opens up her poem taking about a normal childhood girl, playing with dolls, putting on makeup, and wanting to do chores like her mother, but things change for the girl. Puberty.  Piercy opening up the poem by talking about a typical little girl which everyone relates to changes instantly.  The tone of the poem goes from friendly and inviting to almost shocking as the little girl is told she has "a great big nose and fat legs" something every girl wants to hear, not!  In the next stanza Piercy mocks society.  She paints the picture for us of a normal, healthy girl who succumbs to society pressure of how she looks.  She was told one that she had imperfections and apologizes for them anywhere she went. Again mocking the ideal image of a women, the image society often perceives. Piercy's explains how the girl had to smile and exercise, she might as well have said wore red lipstick and eat your vegetables.  The pressure was too much and the girl cut off her insecurities, her nose and legs.  She couldn’t take it one more second. Piercy creates the image of the girl laying in her casket on satin sheets dressed in all pink and white, as if she were a Barbie instead of a human being.  But what about her nose that was cut off? Of course the undertakers had perfectly constructed a putty one to fill the place, hence the perfectly constructed.  Even on her literal deathbed she was being critiqued.  In the end everyone thinks she looks like a “perfect girl”, “consummation at last”. The girl dying is the epitome of Piercy’s message in this poem.  She explains how the pressure to be perfect, the act a certain way, or to look a certain will can kill us both figuratively and literally. Piercy put a lot of time into this poem an it is easily noticeable.  Her deep feminist message is conveyed heavily through satire and irony. It’s extreme that the girl was so insecure about her legs that she cuts them off, but it plays on the satirical effect and adds a sense of shock (irony) to the story. Piercy also separates the stanzas into the girl’s life.  By doing this, it is almost as if we are reading a story book. Each stanza a new chapter of the girl’s journey through life.