Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy

Thursday, September 23, 2010 9:12 PM Posted by Emily Looney
This poem kind of hits home for me and probably every other girl who has felt pressure to conform to what society dictates. This girl in the poem is described as "usual" in the first line of the first stanza. The first stanza shows how naive and innocent the girl was as a young child until she went to school and met her other girl classmates. Honestly, I think girls are much more vicious than boys are, so this made perfect sense to me that the girl in the poem was innocent and happy with how she looked until she went to school and people told her of her imperfections.

This is definitely a shot at society.

"She went to and fro apologizing
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs."

Isn't it ridiculous the emphasis that society puts on being "perfect?" I mean, WHAT IS PERFECTION and who gets the right to decide that? Girls seem to have such a terrible time with the pressure of perfection in nearly every aspect, but especially outside appearance. It becomes quite ironic as the poem goes on because the last stanza states:

"Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending"

Personally, I don't think death necessarily equals a happy ending. It's ironic that she finally got her wish while literally laying on her deathbed: to be pretty and to have people notice her. It is difficult for me to tell though whether or not she killed herself or if she had some sort of plastic surgery that went wrong. Either way...I think this is a desparate cry to a society that values appearance rather than intelligence and inner beauty.

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