Barbie Doll Poem by marge Piercy

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‘Barbie Doll’
Marge Piercy uses Barbie in her poem ‘Barbie Doll’ as an image to represent America’s value system that the country’s young girls are expected to identify with. This unrealistic values and expectations on the woman and young girls cause them great psychological suffering as they struggle to cope with excessive demands and unfair judgment from the society (Lyons, and Piercy, 329). Barbie has beautiful legs with smooth and attractively flowing hair. This is not the case for the poem’s protagonist who has ‘a great big nose and fat legs.’ The girl in the poem is understood to have great physical strength, health, and intelligence. It is ironical for the society in which the girl grows to compare her with Barbie who has no intelligence and health like her. It is also ironical for this society to expect the girl to behave in a prescribed manner yet people have different personalities, taste, and preferences. Puberty is a stage in the lives of both boys and girls that come with different physical changes. It is ironical to focus on the girl’s physical changes, yet these are typical characteristics associated with puberty.
Marge Piercy’s choice of words such as ‘irons’ and ‘stoves’ serve as images that represent stereotypical roles like cooking and ironing associated with women. Women are also expected to behave in a certain manner. These behaviors are evident in stanza three with the choice of words such as “play coy, come on hearty, diet, smile and wheedle” (13-15).

These words represent images of women’s supposed behavior. It is ironical to expect people to behave differently from their natural predispositions. The girl in the poem finally kills herself, and during her burial, she is dressed in a pink and white nightie. This kind of clothing symbolizes beauty and the sexy girl that the society had admired to see. The ‘turned up putty nose’ is the expected beauty standards for the girls imposed on them by societal beliefs and expectations. Marge Piercy adequately employs the use of imagery and irony in the poem ‘Barbie Doll.’
Work Cited
Lyons, Bonnie, and Marge Piercy. “An Interview With Marge Piercy”. Contemporary Literature,
vol 48, no. 3, 2007, pp. 327-344. University Of Wisconsin Press, doi:10.1353/cli.2007.0040.