Monday, January 12, 2009

ENG4U - Barbie Doll Response

In the poem Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy, I was able to analyse the quality of tone, , choice of words that are intersting to me, the importance of the title, my feelings and thoughts about this poem, as well as likes and dislikes it has about the topic of Gender.

In this passage, Piercy introduces the tone of the story to be real, relateable to, truth and scary (lots of different tones), due to the fact that a "classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs" [5-6] to this young girl. She was a smart, intelligent girl who was great in all aspects of life, until someone mentioned a small comment that changed her forever. The tone again then changes into becoming sarcastic as the girl lays in a coffin with a perfect shaped nose, perfect makeup that the undertaker gave her, almost making her look like someone she used to be. As well, Piercy gives the comment of "to every women a happy ending". He is directing this comment to looking beautiful, flawless when you die, I guess some women want to look like for their last moments on Earth. I noticed in the 2nd paragraph of the poem, it talkes about her traites, what she was know for as a human being.

In this passage, the choice of words Piercy chooses is quite interesting to say the least. Some words that came out where Dexterity, meaning having fine motor skills. Sometimes with these big words, I just wish that the author actually wrote what It meant in the first place. Also, the word fan belt jumped out at me as well. I tried to imagine what it could mean, and put it into context of the poem, but it just was not working out. Finally, the word cosummation also questioned my feelings about this passage. Cosummation means to be perfect, and in this case of "Barbie Doll', the idea of being perfect is too far fetched, especially for this story line. The idea of being perfect actually had this girl kill herself by cutting off her body parts.

I thought the Title "Barbie Doll" was very interseting for this poem. The iconic doll Barbie has always been sterotypicalized as the perfect women, the icon that everyone wants to look like, but actually cannot exist in real life. In this story however, the young girl imagines herself looking like the perfect women, just like a Barbie doll. This happens to be the case with alot of teenage girls. They only look at their own flaws, look at them so much that they cause themselves serious problems. Even though facts show that no one can be perfect, Girls still strive day and night to look perfect. The title doesn't change throughout the story, it still sticks with the same meaning. What else is weird is that a Barbie Doll is a toy that young girls play with everyday (relating back to the first paragraph). This could of easily been her turning point into a downword spiral of emotion.

Margie Piercy displays the idea of Gender in this poem quite clearly. It shows that young girls go to such drastic and insanse measures to be perfect in every way. It shows that some girls crack under pressure of society so much, that they are willing to do anything it takes. This happens so much over the world where women pay so much money just to fix their tinniest flaws.
Finally, I did like the poem in some ways since it was able to show the real facts and true feelings that some girls do go through. As well, I wasn't a big fan of some of the parts like the end scene. There are some mixed emotions for me, but overall it was a good story.

1 comment:

  1. Julie-this an excellent analysis!! I thought your points about the "girls" cracking under pressure is quite true!I thought your point about the fact that Barbie is a toy that young girls love playing with everyday was interesting-something quite innocent seeming has a real negative connotation in the poem.

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