Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy
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.
My interpretation
This is a poem focused on a perspective of the cruelty of life for the character portrayed. There was less repetition of words in contrast to the ample amount of opposites which appears to be the theme targeting on the incompatibility of the character to everyone else. The repetition of nose (3 times) is interesting as this body part signifies strength and hones in on the sense of smell yet this characteristic is never significant. The poem has little to do with smell and everything to do with sight.
Another word that is repeated is fat. This word is centralized in the poem and seems to be the leading complication for the character. The title of the poem, Barbie Doll, is in direct contrast to this repeated word. Barbie Dolls litter the shelves of toy stores across the world and are conjoined with words such as small, thin, beautiful, wee, and miniature. The words great, fat, and thick are a strand of words used in the poem to describe the body of the character which is an anomaly to the Barbie Doll toy.
Another word repeated in this poem is legs. This extremity is repeated three times and appears to be important to the writer. The legs can be a visible limb to the public eye and are associated with strength and agility. On a Barbie the legs are slim, sleek, and smooth unlike the description of the character’s legs which were described as fat and thick. To this end, it may be obvious to the reader that the character is the direct opposite of a beautiful Barbie. If the Barbie Doll is everyone’s established standard of beauty and success, the character falls short and is categorized as abnormal and irregular. She does not meet the standard, cannot be packaged, boxed, and sold for full price. She is discounted and sold “as is”.
The poem visits four seasons of the characters life from birth to puberty and womanhood to death. During the character’s childhood strands of similar words such as dolls, stoves, irons, and wee lipsticks are listed as if the child was subconsciously brainwashed into growing up early and learning quickly to fit in and find her role in society (i.e. cooking, ironing). She is surrounded by a miniature and “wee” things that may be an expectation of approval. Her childhood like many appears to be manual but she is succumbed by the “magic of puberty”. Many facets of her puberty are standard such as being described as healthy and “tested intelligent” but these unimportant qualities are disintegrated by a single classmate whose powerful words “tore the limbs” from the character’s indeterminate anatomy. The fact that the character had an “abundant sexual drive: and: manual dexterity” as listed by the author are faint in comparison to the words “you have a great big nose and fat legs” stated by a classmate.
This colored perception of the character’s appearance spread to everyone including the character. She began to apologize for being substandard and the binary opposites began to surface smashing the plastic pieces of perfection and aspiration of the character. The girl child turned into a woman. The strong arms and back she once had in her youth have been replaced. She is now exhorted and advised to exercise, diet, and smile. Unspoken expectations are set in place as well as she has mixed signals of being coy yet being hearty. Once possessed by strength, she cuts off her lower extremities and nose leaving her with a shell containing arms and a face with eyes that continue to reflect her non-conformant image.
Her “good nature” never mattered and eventually snapped from overuse and abuse. The bottom line was being fat would never equal being pretty. These were opposites that the character could not seem to connect. The character eventually dies but the poem seemed to imply that she died the day she too acknowledge and agreed with the classmate that appearance was the single most important aspect of life.
The character is laid to rest in a casket lined with satin. Her face is “painted” with cosmetics picked out by a stranger. She is dressed like a doll (presented) in a standard “pink and white nightie” also picked out by the well-intended “everyone’s” that surrounded her. These same everyone’s gloated in their accomplishment. They had finally, in her death, made her normal.
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.
My interpretation
This is a poem focused on a perspective of the cruelty of life for the character portrayed. There was less repetition of words in contrast to the ample amount of opposites which appears to be the theme targeting on the incompatibility of the character to everyone else. The repetition of nose (3 times) is interesting as this body part signifies strength and hones in on the sense of smell yet this characteristic is never significant. The poem has little to do with smell and everything to do with sight.
Another word that is repeated is fat. This word is centralized in the poem and seems to be the leading complication for the character. The title of the poem, Barbie Doll, is in direct contrast to this repeated word. Barbie Dolls litter the shelves of toy stores across the world and are conjoined with words such as small, thin, beautiful, wee, and miniature. The words great, fat, and thick are a strand of words used in the poem to describe the body of the character which is an anomaly to the Barbie Doll toy.
Another word repeated in this poem is legs. This extremity is repeated three times and appears to be important to the writer. The legs can be a visible limb to the public eye and are associated with strength and agility. On a Barbie the legs are slim, sleek, and smooth unlike the description of the character’s legs which were described as fat and thick. To this end, it may be obvious to the reader that the character is the direct opposite of a beautiful Barbie. If the Barbie Doll is everyone’s established standard of beauty and success, the character falls short and is categorized as abnormal and irregular. She does not meet the standard, cannot be packaged, boxed, and sold for full price. She is discounted and sold “as is”.
The poem visits four seasons of the characters life from birth to puberty and womanhood to death. During the character’s childhood strands of similar words such as dolls, stoves, irons, and wee lipsticks are listed as if the child was subconsciously brainwashed into growing up early and learning quickly to fit in and find her role in society (i.e. cooking, ironing). She is surrounded by a miniature and “wee” things that may be an expectation of approval. Her childhood like many appears to be manual but she is succumbed by the “magic of puberty”. Many facets of her puberty are standard such as being described as healthy and “tested intelligent” but these unimportant qualities are disintegrated by a single classmate whose powerful words “tore the limbs” from the character’s indeterminate anatomy. The fact that the character had an “abundant sexual drive: and: manual dexterity” as listed by the author are faint in comparison to the words “you have a great big nose and fat legs” stated by a classmate.
This colored perception of the character’s appearance spread to everyone including the character. She began to apologize for being substandard and the binary opposites began to surface smashing the plastic pieces of perfection and aspiration of the character. The girl child turned into a woman. The strong arms and back she once had in her youth have been replaced. She is now exhorted and advised to exercise, diet, and smile. Unspoken expectations are set in place as well as she has mixed signals of being coy yet being hearty. Once possessed by strength, she cuts off her lower extremities and nose leaving her with a shell containing arms and a face with eyes that continue to reflect her non-conformant image.
Her “good nature” never mattered and eventually snapped from overuse and abuse. The bottom line was being fat would never equal being pretty. These were opposites that the character could not seem to connect. The character eventually dies but the poem seemed to imply that she died the day she too acknowledge and agreed with the classmate that appearance was the single most important aspect of life.
The character is laid to rest in a casket lined with satin. Her face is “painted” with cosmetics picked out by a stranger. She is dressed like a doll (presented) in a standard “pink and white nightie” also picked out by the well-intended “everyone’s” that surrounded her. These same everyone’s gloated in their accomplishment. They had finally, in her death, made her normal.
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