Poem analysis of "What are big Girls made of" by marge piercy?

Question

The construction of a woman
a woman is not made of flesh
of bone and sinew
belly and breasts, elbows and liver and toe.
She is manufactured like a sports sedan.
She is retooled, refitted and redesigned
every decade.

Cecile had been seduction itself in college.
She wriggled through bars like a satin eel,
her hips and *** promising, her mouth pursed
in the dark red lipstick of desire.

She visited in '68 still wearing skirts
tight to the knees, dark red lipstick,
while I danced through Manhattan in mini skirt,
lipstick pale as apricot milk,
hair loose as a horse's mane. Oh dear,
I thought in my superiority of the moment,
whatever has happened to poor Cecile?
She was out of fashion, out of the game,
disqualified, disdained,
dismembered from the club of desire.

Additional Details

Look at pictures in French fashion
magazines of the 18th century:
century of the ultimate lady
fantasy wrought of silk and corseting.
Paniers bring her hips out three feet
each way, while the waist is pinched
and the belly flattened under wood.
The breasts are stuffed up and out
offered like apples in a bowl.
The tiny foot is encased in a slipper
never meant for walking.
On top is a grandiose headache:
hair like a museum piece, daily
ornamented with ribbons, vases,
grottoes, mountains, frigates in full
sail, balloons, baboons, the fancy
of a hairdresser turned loose.
The hats were rococo wedding cakes
that would dim the Las Vegas strip.
Here is a woman forced into shape
rigid exoskeleton torturing flesh:
a woman made of pain.

How superior we are now: see the modern woman
thin as a blade of scissors.
She runs on a treadmill every morning,
fits herself into machines of weights
and pulleys to heave and grunt,
an image in her mind she can never
approximate, a body of rosy
glass that never wrinkles,
ever grows, never fades. She
sits at the table closing her eyes to food
hungry, always hungry:
a woman made of pain.

A cat or dog approaches another,
they sniff noses. They sniff asses.
They bristle or lick. They fall
in love as often as we do,
as passionately. But they fall
in love or lust with furry flesh,
not hoop skirts or push up bras
rib removal or liposuction.
It is not for male or female dogs
that poodles are clipped
to topiary hedges.

If only we could like each other raw.
If only we could love ourselves
like healthy babies burbling in our arms.
If only we were not programmed and reprogrammed
to need what is sold us.
Why should we want to live inside ads?
Why should we want to scourge our softness
to straight lines like a Mondrian painting?
Why should we punish each other with scorn
as if to have a large ***
were worse than being greedy or mean?

When will women not be compelled
to view their bodies as science projects,
gardens to be weeded,
dogs to be trained?
When will a woman cease
to be made of pain?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Sounds like you're writing a paper.

I suggest you break this poem down stanza by stanza, and then line by line. I know it's long, but it's easy!

Piercy is telling a story, here. She's talking about one woman, Cecile, but essentially she's talking about all women. Look, specifically, at how Piercy discusses the beauty rituals women endured in the 18th century, and how she compares them to what the "modern" woman still does today. She's bringing up questions of why women do these things - is it for themselves? Is it for men? Is it because of the judgment of other women?

Women supposedly keep up an outward appearance because it reflects who they are, internally - a neat, appealing appearance is supposed to reflect a good spirit inside. But Piercy is asking if these outward symbols of internal goodness have replaced the things they were supposed to represent.

Examine these ideas when you write your paper. Pull out specific lines to cite, and then tie them into how this supports your overall thesis or ideas of what you believe she is trying to say.

And don't just lift a sentence I've used in this post; most professors now are running their students' papers through online databases, and this site is sure to pop up fast.

Better off spending fifteen minutes thinking about my post and this poem than you are failing a paper, love!