Rejecting Barbie: Beyond a Perfect Size Six

Barbie Doll by border Piercy explores the emotional pressure on women caused by smart sets ideals of feminine dishful. The verse form is presumption a title after the well-loved snort from Mattel to show the type of features expected of a daughter in order that she is considered beautiful. The early(a) strengths of the miss in the poem are ignored in favor of physiological attributes. Comparing women to what is considered a physical moulding of what is beautiful keep destroy the individuality and self-worth of different types of beauty, including beauty that transcends the physical. particular girls are expected to bit with dolls.The girl in the poem is said to be born as usual (Piercy line 1) and presented dolls that did micturate (Piercy line 2). She is either emotionally very feminine that she chooses what other little girls would play with, or she has been brought up in such a way that she is molded into the typical little girl. Everything is fine with the girl she plays with what other little girls play with and wears wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy (Piercy line 4). Little children are as well innocent to point disclose differences that only the brainwashed Barbie-loving society can tell.Robert Perrin considers that the ceremonial formality of presented, juxtapose with the euphemistic word pee-pee (Perrin 83) contribute to the poems meaning. It begins the poems use of irony, although in some way it is very feminine to be formal with some words and yet to traverse using other words which are considered to be too vulgar for a lady to say, same(p) to urinate. So far, the main character is doing well as the society expects her. Puberty changes the little girls place in the societys favor.She may have healthy appetites and a keen intellectual (Piercy lines 7-9), but she often feels the need to apologize for her facial features and weight (Piercy lines 10-11) that do not meet the standards of a beautiful young womanhood in the eyes of society. In fact, it is very difficult to attain the standards of a life- sur baptismal font Barbie equivalent proportionally she will be about five feet and six inches tall, is 110 pounds, wears sized seven clothes and measures a top-heavy 39-18-33 (duCille 9). To add to the young girls pressure, she does not accept the beautiful face and thin body of what is considered the average pretty girl.Her other, better, qualities are not even given the appreciation they deserve, even though she is basically a normal girl with something minor lacking, according to society (Frisk). For a young girl who is quiesce seeking her place in the world, this is devastating. While she keeps on apologizing for her flaws, the poem seems to apologize by also occasionally mentioning her good characteristics. Other people try to change the girl into something that she is not. She is being transformed to be come in someone who is supposedly a better mortal.She was advised to play coy, /exhorted to co me on hearty, / exercise, diet, make a face and wheedle (Piercy lines 12-14). The changes are to be made on her physical features and also on her personality. This is to produce the stereotypical female she not only tangs good, she also has to behave in a true manner, like baking cookies for her children so that they have something to eat when they arrive home (Schimone 79). This is the type of woman that the girls so called advisers want her to be a c misuseing woman with a ready smile but who does not act vulgar instead, she must play coy or act shy.The poet, Marge Piercy, on the other hand, believes that it wasnt good generous for women to keep making the coffee and running the mimeo machines while the men were off on power trips on theory and leadership (Altman 6). Women must not be expected to fit into a mold. Instead, each womans individuality must be accepted and appreciated. Then, we are again introduced to irony, because compared to the impossibly proportioned Barbie do ll, the girl is more capable of an intellectual conversation and a warm welcome. She is flesh and blood, while Barbie is an inanimate doll. Yet, the latter seems to garner more approval from society.It is indeed enough pressure to push a young girl to the edge. Other girls who have the same pressure get down illnesses like eating disorders. The unnamed girl in the poem develops depression as a pull up stakes of bleakness. This is evident in the line Her good nature wore out/ like a fan bam (Piercy lines 15-16). This is the point at which the poem turns into a darker territory. The particular simile is used because when a fan belt out does wear out, there is no way to move forward. This means that the girl has become so hopeless about her situation that she has decided to do something drastic.So she cut off her look and her legs/ and offered them up (Piercy lines 17-18). These are lines that are so graphic and shocking that some readers interpret it as plastic surgery to appro ximately decrease the shock of someone chemise herself. Some scholars, however, believe that the literal meaning is true because it is a logical precedent to the last stanza, where the poet talks about her funeral. Perrin believes that the girl does the cutting ceremonially (Perrin 84), implying that she has done the cutting herself, and this is no plastic surgery.Unable to live up to the standards set by the dolls she is given, the children with whom she plays and the adults who urge her to diet, a girl-child sets out to fix her big nose and fat legs permanently (duCille 8). Ann duCille focuses on the girls depression and ultimately, insanity, which enables her to harm herself for the sake of an ideal image that she is unable to reach. So the author, in a bitter, bitter touch of fantastic comedy, has her cut them off (Frisk). Phillip Frisk also depends that the cutting is literal, and a technique used by the poet to mark the magnitude of the girls despair.He thinks it is a form of grotesque comedy because the action is too total and sorry. The act may be desperate but a plastic surgery may be dubbed as desperate as well. Either interpretation will emphasize the depths that the girls self-assertion has sunk into. The self-mutilation, however, is more deranged and is an extreme illustration of what breaking a girls self-worth can do. In the casket displayed on satin she lay/ with the undertakers cosmetics painted on/ a sour up putty nose (Piercy lines 19-21). Again, there are different views on the preceding lines.It may still be interpreted that the girl has undergone plastic surgery and has ended up with a putty nose or a nose that has been molded to the shape desired. However, yet again, the death is a logical offspring to violent self-mutilation, the literal interpretation of the girl cutting herself. The closing stanza presents an artificially serene view of the girl prepared by the undertaker with makeup, reconstructed nose, and a pink-and-white nightie (Perrin 84). Perrin says that it is the undertaker that prepares the girls face for her funeral.The nose must be fixed so that it can at least be respectable when the girl is viewed in her casket by the mourners. Immobile, the girl is subjected to ministrations that are supposed to make her fit to be seen. She has become a Barbie doll dressed and made up to be aesthetically pleasing. Doesnt she look pretty? Everyone said/ Consummation at last (Piercy lines 23-24). Finally, the girl achieves the compliments that she has always cherished to hear. It is ironic, and unfortunate, that this has not happened during her lifetime but happens instead during her funeral.According to Perrin, the onlookers comment on the dead(p) girl provides a more disturbing scenario (Perrin 84). He proceeds by criticizing the insensitivity and ultimate cruelty of a society that encourages patterned behaviors, that fails to live the innate values people possess, that creates artificial demands, and that perpetuates unhealthy expectations (Perrin 84). They have learned to appreciate the girl when she is dead and made up by the undertaker. It seems that they too believe that the girl is better off dead and pretty, than unambiguous but healthy and alive.This is a self-absorbed society focused on what they believe a woman should be. The woman itself is not asked if she is still comfortable about the expectations and pressures attached to her very own femininity. She has to wait for other people to affirm her beauty and not make her own mind about what real beauty is all about. To every woman, a happy ending (Piercy line 25). The poem ends in irony. It is difficult to believe that dying through self-mutilation can gather such a comment. The people seem to be unsympathetic.Instead, they think that the girl has gotten what she has always wanted. They do not stop to think that when the girl is still living, she would have wanted to feel more at ease with herself, with who she rea lly is, rather than constantly try to please other people. She does get her peace, at last, but it has to be this tragic. Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy is a reminder of the dangers of comparability women to idealized versions of the perfect woman and the value of appreciating a womans worth beyond her physical form.A woman is not just a body, but a complete bundle of the physical, emotional and intellectual. On the other hand, the Barbie doll figure may be attractive to some, but it is after all, only a doll. Women may have to endure dangerous physical alterations in order to follow this ideal. Therefore, it can be concluded that a woman is not an object for men to enjoy watching, but she is her own person who can choose the path she wants to take. Works Cited Altman, Meryl. Lives on the Line. The Womens Review of Books, Vol. 19, no. 7 (April 2002) 6-7. duCille, Ann.Review Little Big Woman. The Womens Review of Books, Vol. 11, No. 3 (November 1993) 7-9. Frisk, Phillip. Teaching Note s Barbie Doll. Radical Teacher (Winter 1991). Perrin, Robert. Barbie Doll and G. I. Joe Exploring Issues of Gender. The side of meat Journal, Vol. 88, no. 3 (January 1999) 83-85. Piercy, Marge. Barbie Doll. 22 November 2007 . Schimone, Anthony J. At Home with Poetry Constructing Poetry Anthologies in the High School. The position Journal, Vol. 89, No. 2 (November 1999) 78-82.