Barbie Doll

"She cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up."
"Barbie Doll"
Marge Piercy


This poem shows the negative effect that dolls can have on children early in their life. They play with these perfect looking flawless figurines, and believe that this is what they are supposed to look like. When they see someone that isn't a model of that image, they are made made fun of and laughed at. This poem shows that children are taught an unattainable model of perfection at a young age, and this affects them throughout their lives, as well as those other children around them.

The sad part about this poem is that the girl portrayed is perfectly healthy--"She was healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back," but none of this is important to her because she has "a great big nose and fat legs." I think the phrase 'inner beauty' should really apply to this poem. I know it sounds really cliche, but sometimes it's not all about having the best physical features; when people focus too much on the outer beauty, they forget to acknowledge someone's inner beauty, and that person is not even appreciated for their talents or other beauties they possess.

This poem also reminded me of that show on TLC "Toddlers and Tiaras" because the parents give the girls this idea that they have to be so pretty and perfect. Mainly the show disgusts me because I feel like the girls are just all going to grow up to be brats, like the one that called the girl in the poem fat. But, it's not really their fault that their parents tell them this is what's right, or they let them play with these dolls that can affect their way of viewing others.

Back to the poem. The quote I used above is an overstatement because I doubt the girl literally cut up her nose and her legs to get rid of them. I think the words "cut up" are almost like a euphemism to say that she became anorexic and it took over her life. The very last sentence of the poem said, "To every woman a happy ending." I think this was contradictory because the girl had a very twisted happy ending--she died, but at the same time she was supposedly 'happy' because her anorexia may have gotten rid of her defects. The poem demonstrates the extreme measures some girls take just to fit it and be a pretty barbie doll.