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Barbie Doll
This poem is ironic because the "girlchild" of the first line eventually achieves society's standard of physical perfection—the only measure of her worth important enough for people to notice—when...
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Barbie Doll
In the poem, a little girl is born and is immediately provided with "dolls that did pee-pee," little kitchen appliances, and tiny red lipsticks. She is only a baby, and yet she is already being...
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Barbie Doll
The parable in this poem is saying that women are killing themselves (literally and, more often, figuratively) in order to look more like Barbie dolls. In the poem, the girl is a perfectly normal...
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Barbie Doll
First, let us review what an adjective is. Adjectives are words you use to describe nouns (or pronouns). If I write, "I just finished walking my noisy dog," the word "noisy" is an adjective telling...
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Barbie Doll
Irony is the literary device used in Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" throughout the poem, and, certainly, in the last verse. Irony is a literary tool that, unlike sarcasm and satire, is not cruel or...
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Barbie Doll
The poem "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy is less about physical death and more about the death of what the real ideal of women should be. The girlchild represents you and I: Typical, ordinary, and...
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Barbie Doll
The speaker of Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" is unnamed, but she/he appears to be a third-person narrator who relates the story of the young girl whom he/she has either known or been told about...
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Barbie Doll
Piercy's point in making the images of the doll cut herself and offer them reflects the sacrifices that women make in order to conform to a male dictated standard of beauty. The theme of obedience...
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Barbie Doll
The difference between the literal meaning of the words and the author's meaning can be summed up in one word: irony. By that I mean, this girl was probably told these things. She was urged to...
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Barbie Doll
The use of "a fan belt" is a direct reference to a machine that has worn out from too much use. The image of the woman being conditioned to possess "good nature" is one that reflects a constant...
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Barbie Doll
While both statements of theme seem appropriate, perhaps the first one strikes more immediately at the tension created in the fifth line: Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercey's poem "Barbie Doll" is an indictment of the socially constructed values of beauty which are forced upon women from the time that they are young. In the first stanza of the poem, we...
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Barbie Doll
"Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy, is a poem which relies heavily on irony to make its point. Irony, of course, is a contrast or discrepancy between two things. In this case, the contrast is between...
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Barbie Doll
Literary devices range from the simple to the complex, and Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" has several of them. A simple one can be found in the third stanza: Her good nature wore outlike a fan...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" is an ironic commentary on the value society places on outward beauty and perfection as well as the potentially deadly consequences of this emphasis. It all...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy creates dark, situational irony in her poem "Barbie Doll" through the use of imagery and pop culture references. The poem addresses the importance society places on feminine beauty,...
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Barbie Doll
In the poem, "Barbie Doll," by Marge Piercy, the title reflects the seemingly perfect essence of the doll, which some might assume to reflect the physical characteristics of a perfect woman. In the...
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Barbie Doll
"Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy describes a girl who tries to live up to the ideal image of a beautiful girl as shown by the doll named Barbie. The girl is healthy and strong and "tested...
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Barbie Doll
The last verse of the poem "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy speaks of the way modern society focuses on the external when it comes to analyzing the worth of an individual, especially women, in...
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Barbie Doll
This part of the poem "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy can be found in the last stanza, where it says: In the casket displayed on satin she laywith the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,a turned-up...
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Barbie Doll
Syntax refers to sentence structure, and a typical, grammatically correct sentence contains at least a subject (noun) and a predicate (verb or verbal phrase). Writers might take some license with...
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Barbie Doll
The girl is advised by society, more specifically her parents. This poem describes the effect of unrealistic expectations of beauty on a young girl. When she is young, she is given dolls that...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll” emphasizes the pressures that young women face to conform to stereotypical ideals of feminine beauty. The girl described in the first four lines of the poem seems...
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Barbie Doll
I don't think that you should do the his/her thing here. This poem is clearly a statement about what society does to women in particular, not to men and women both. Other than that, I think...
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Barbie Doll
The poem "Barbie Doll" was written by the contemporary Jewish-American writer Marge Piercy. It reflects many of the common themes of her work, including feminism, social protest, and Jewish...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy's commentary poetry on the social pressures bestowed upon women make "Barbie Doll" a memorable poem that exposes the unfair expectations that women are meant to comply with. Lines...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" is a social commentary on the unreasonably high expectations for women as set by society. The poem makes it clear this standard is impossible to achieve--at least...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" is a condemnation of the unrealistic expectations of beauty. The doll, Barbie, was once the iconic representation of what every woman should be. Things have...
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Barbie Doll
The second stanza of Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" provides the audience with a direct characterization of the unnamed character whom the poem is about: a young and happy girl who, after...
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Barbie Doll
This poem begins by describing the childhood of a young girl and how she is gifted baby dolls, toy stoves, irons, and makeup. These gifts are all not-so-subtle cues about the things that society...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" is the tragic account of a young woman who grew insecure and dissatisfied enough about her appearance to actually take her own life. It begins with a few careless...
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Barbie Doll
I think that the iconic reference to Barbie is quite evident in Piercy's poem. The construction of the Barbie Doll by Mattel is used to reference how women's identities are constructed by a...
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Barbie Doll
I believe the Barbie Carnival Series (Rio de Janeiro Barbie) was introduced in 2006. It was part of Barbie's/Mattel's "Dolls of the World" series, and it was based on a Brazilian-styled carnival...
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy ends her poem "Barbie Doll" with the line "To every woman a happy ending" (25). Piercy uses the literary technique of irony, because the girl's ending was anything but happy....
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Barbie Doll
In the ending of the poem, Piercy has constructed a vision of woman as a result of industrialization. The idea of a fan belt being "worn out" has yielded a product that has broken due to overuse....
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Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" provides commentary on gender roles and expectations for women. Piercy describes a girl who grows up with traditional roles and descriptions of a feminine girl,...
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Barbie Doll
Piercy's poem about cosmetic beauty and the social obsession about it is constructed to feed into the larger narrative that women are mere "dolls" in the patriarchal modern setting in which they...
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Barbie Doll
I don't think that you get far in the literary criticism of this poem without focusing on feminist thought. Indeed, the feminist critical perspective is one of the most overwhelming in assessing...