What do you think about this poem?

Question

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.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

Barbie Doll has a strong note of sadness but it emphasizes not the girl's death but the dissapointments in her life. The only "scene" in the poem portrays the unnamed girl at rest in her casket, but the still body in the casket contrasts not with vitalitybut with fristration and anxiety: her life since puberty had been full of apologies and attempts to change her physical appearance and emotional makeup. The"consummation" she achieves in death is not, however, a triumph, despite what people say. Although the poem's last two words are "happy ending" this girl without a name has died in embarrassment and without fulfillment, and the final lines are ironic, questioning the whole idea of what "happy" means. The cheerful comments at the end lack force and truth because of what we already know; we understand them as ironic because they underline how unhappy the girl was and how false her cosmeticized corpse is to the sad truth of her life.

The poem suggests the falsity and destructiveness of those standards od female beauty that have led to the tragedy of the girls life. In an important sense, the poem is not really about death at all in spite of the face that the girl's death and her repaired corpse are central to it. As the title suggests, the poem dramatizes how standardized, commercialized notions of femininity and prettiness can be painful and destructive to those whose bodies do not precisely fit the conformist models, and the poem vigorously attacks those conventional standards and then widespread, unthinking acceptance of them.

That's what I got out of it, but I'm interested in some other viewpoints! What are your thoughts? I would love some more opinions! Thank you!!

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

gee! your answered your own question. Can I just go with your capable evaluation? I'd give ya 10! ;)