The Dangers of Society
Society’s projections of body image can play a huge factor in people’s lives by changing how they view their bodies. In the eye opening poem by Marge Piercy,“Barbie Doll”, a young girl starts feeling insecure about her body because of a rude comment made that targeted her nose and thighs. Piercy’s uses of irony, imagery, and symbolism manifest that society’s thoughts on the perfect body are unrealistic and teach girls that they need to look a certain way in order to be desirable. All body types are beautiful in their own way, but it has to be seen by one’s own self even when society doesn’t see it that way.
People should be happy with their bodies without needing approval from others. The uses of irony show
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The imagery gives readers a visual understanding of the girl’s changing appearance. The image of the girl’s “great big nose” and “fat legs” help readers understand why she built a complex over these features and eventually felt the need to change them. Before she hit puberty, these features never really bothered her, until someone made a comment that made her eventually mutilate her body: “So she cut off her nose and her legs/ and offered them up,” (lines 17-18). Once she gave in to the peer pressure to be “pretty”, she did get acceptance, but it only came after her death when she wasn’t there to hear it. If society didn’t make her feel like her body wasn’t pretty enough, she would’ve never gone through such drastic measures to change her body in the first place. After she gave in to the peer pressure and died, the vivid descriptions of her new and dead self helped the readers really understand how much she changed even after death: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay/ with undertaker’s cosmetics painted on a turned-up putty nose, dressed in a pink and white nightie” (lines 19-22). Another reason why there was so much imagery in these lines are to demonstrate how people still wanted to change her after death, by making her wear such Barbie Doll like clothing. Without these evocative uses of imagery, the reader wouldn’t be able to really see how much society changed the young girl
"Skin blemishes made it impossible for me to really enjoy myself. I was always worrying about the way I looked" (Brumberg, p. 87). Woman all around the world share the same problem, they feel unhappy and self-conscious with the appearance of their bodies. In The Body Project by Joan Jacobs Brumberg, she successfully illustrates the way adolescents begin to change focus from inner to outer beauty in the early 19th and 20th centuries. Through use of personal diaries and historical research, Brumberg shows her readers the physical differences between girls then and now.
In a world where many are led to believe that they fall short of what society depicts as “perfect”, it is still true that everyone is beautiful in their own way. There are even more demands on girls now a days than there has ever been before. Some may think they need to fit in, so they become someone they are not or they begin to act like a totally different person. “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, illustrates society’s high and unrealistic expectations on the physical appearance of women, while failing to see that a woman’s self-esteem is at risk of being diminished.
The treatment of females from the 18th century through the 21st century have only gotten worse due to society’s ignorant judgment of the gender. Of which, is the change from the previous housewife like actions to the modern day body figure. This repulsive transaction is perceived throughout literature. From the 19th century’s short story, “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin in 1894 and the 20th century’s poem, “Barbie Doll” composed by Marge Piercy in 1971.
In Marge Piercy’s, “Barbie Doll,” we see the effect that society has on the expectations of women. A woman, like the girl described in ‘Barbie Doll’, should be perfect. She should know how to cook and clean, but most importantly be attractive according to the impossible stereotypes of womanly beauty. Many women in today’s society are compared to the unrealistic life and form of the doll. The doll, throughout many years, has transformed itself from a popular toy to a role model for actual women. The extremes to which women take this role model are implicated in this short, yet truthful poem.
Every woman grows up knowing that they one day want to be beautiful. In Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” she gives an in depth look at what negative effects the concept of beauty can have on an individual. From infancy to a full grown adult woman, beauty has been a way of thinking and lifestyle. As a little girl you are given petite shaped, blonde, blue eyed dolls. While boys are given brawny soldiers and mechanical toys.
Throughout history women have been portrayed as inferior to men in all ages. However women have transcended from being too inferior to men to actually being portrayed as naive in the sense that women only care about their beauty since that is the only thing that society cares about now. This has now spread to age in society where now women are portrayed by the media as sex symbols so that could be enticing to society. In the “Fat Girl” by andre dubus the main charcter Louise is pressured by her family members espically her mother to lose weight so that she can fit into societies portrayal of women.In the poem “the barbie doll” by margie piercy the female charcter is forced to correct her body images in order to fit with that of which society
The girl is healthy, intelligent, and strong. However, society can not see past her physical imperfection and see her inner perfection. The preconception that outer beauty reflects the inner beauty, was society cursing her. Society tells her to "play coy" and "exercise, diet, smile and wheedle" . She hears and interprets it to mean that she is nothing but a "fat nose on thick legs".
To achieve this body, women will starve themselves or eat way below the accepted calorie count. Women will do anything to achieve the body they see so many models have. This is exhibited in the poem, Barbie Doll. In this poem, Marge Piercy uses a Barbie doll to convey the hardships women go through to achieve a body that they like. For example, “So she cut off her nose and legs and offered them up” (Piercy). Figuratively speaking, it can be inferred that since Barbie was not satisfied with her appearance, she sought out methods to change them. Barbie wanted to fit in and since everyone was making fun of her appearance, she decided that the only solution is to change what other people make fun of her about, to something that they would like. This shows that Barbie wanted to look like what everyone liked so bad that she would to go as far as to cut off her own nose and
People are always complaining about how they aren’t as pretty as models on billboards, or how they aren’t as thin as that other girl. Why do we do this to ourselves? It’s benefitting absolutely nobody and it just makes us feel bad about ourselves. The answer is because society has engraved in our minds that we need to be someone we’re not in order to look beautiful. Throughout time, society has shaped our attitudes about appearances, making it perfectly normal and even encouraged, to be five feet ten inches and 95 pounds. People have felt trapped by this ideal. Society has made these beauty standards unattainable, therefore making it self defeating. This is evident in A Doll’s House, where the main character, Nora, feels trapped by Torvald and society’s standard of beauty. The ideal appearance that is prevalent in society is also apparent in the novel, The Samurai’s Garden, where Sachi is embarrassed of the condition of her skin due to leprosy and the stigmas associated with the disease. The burden of having to live up to society’s standard of beauty can affect one psychologically and emotionally, as portrayed in A Doll’s House and The Samurai’s Garden.
In the poem “Barbie Doll” the speaker take more drastic measures to make herself acceptable to society. In line12 the speaker takes drastic measures to fix herself, “So she cut off her nose and legs.” This action will lead to her death in the end of the poem which would not have happened if her peers did not mock her about the way her nose and legs looked. People are aware of their own imperfections, but when people mock them and do not accept them because of it, that is when the drastic measures of starvation, excessive exercising, and depression can begin. It can happen without the pressures of society, but if society mocks them, it pushes the person further in to a state of
In the poem “Barbie Doll”, two techniques that were used in stanza 3 are; a dark tone and a dramatic monologue. The dramatic monologue represents the idea of society telling the woman that she needs to exercise and diet and play coy etc., in order to have a body size the is “acceptable”. The dark tone represents the idea that the woman was not accepted by society due to her body image. Society pressured her to do things that would make her ‘thin’ in size, and looking like a Barbie doll. In the end she committed suicide because she was overwhelmed by all the pressures that society had placed on her.
Her poem, “Barbie Doll,” tells the story of a young girl who was short-lived. She was beaten down by society's expectations of what she should be. The poem was a major eye-opener for many, especially considering the time period it was written in. It helped to put the inappropriate and materialistic standards that women continued to be held up to on full display. It broadcasts the effects of these insane standards with an uncensored, real and raw approach.
In “Barbie Doll,” by Marge Piercy, the speaker’s tone is remorsefully cautionary because she aims to protect females from the societal standards that caused the female subject of the poem to commit suicide. Early in the poem, the speaker illustrates the teen prior to her death: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). Clearly, the girl had the potential to be very successful, as a result of her many natural gifts. However, she was constantly harassed and nagged because she had a “great big nose and fat legs” (6). Even though she had all the attributes of a very successful woman, she was still abused by her fellow classmates because she did not uphold the societal
The Pressure to be Beautiful Marge Piercy’s poem, “Barbie Doll,” portrays a young, healthy girl who was just like everyone else, but when puberty struck, her peers told her of her flaws. Even though she was intelligent and healthy, the pressure from her peers made her so depressed, she thought plastic surgery, and in the end, suicide were her only answers to having the perfect body. The end result reflects what happens to many women and young girls in today’s society that face mainstream media’s perspective of “beauty.” One’s beauty is often not determined by what’s on the inside, but by being tall, slender and blonde. Like in “Barbie Doll,” many women and young teenagers lose themselves to body image, self-esteem and pressures of having the
Irony is not used for its own sake; it is combined with a sense of the