Marge Piercy

After reading Marge Piercy’s Barbie Doll, the girl in the story had killed herself because she felt that others saw her as ugly. Upon further reading, the poem shows that there is more meaning behind it. The poem is not just about a young woman who takes her life for not being perfect. Piercy uses literary techniques and figurative language that describes a society for women. The writing style in this poem includes long, descriptive lines. Having the long lines with the descriptions helps to…

Society has long considered women to be the weaker sex. Traditional gender dichotomies suggest that women are weaker than men and are inherently lacking in power. As female poets, Jan Beatty, Lucille Clifton, and Marge Piercy challenge the assumption that women are the weaker sex. In their respective works, each poet identifies a mechanism for women to gain power both in society as well as over men. In “Waitress’ Instruction on Tipping or Get the Cash up and Don’t Waste My Time,” Jan Beatty…

written by Marge Piercy, the speaker is slowly being dehumanized as each of her body parts are referred to common office supplies. In 1970, the time that the poem was written, Marge Piercy was a secretary who worked long shifts and was constantly mistreated for the fact that she had the jo Piercy’s use of metaphors, imagery along with an added major shift is interpreted through the depressed eyes of a secretary who winds up giving up her humanity. Along with the figurative language that Piercy…

"Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy, made me recognize a predominant issue that has been around for ages. Which is, that in our society, there has and always will be the desire, especially for women, to appear perfect on the outside. There is simply too much pressure and concern for women to give in and try to look as perfect as a Barbie doll ( which is physically impossible by the way). I believe the media and the power of people's words greatly impacts a woman's self confidence. Piercy’ selects a…

In Marge Piercy’s “What Are Big Girls Made Of?”, she uses metaphors and emphasizes the impact that society has on women to show women how their lives are being negatively influenced. Marge Piercy (1997) emphasizes the patriarchal expectations of society in using the metaphor, “She is manufactured like a sports sedan./She is retooled, refitted and redesigned/every decade” (line 5-7). The way Piercy shows women that they should not be influenced by society is through harsh comparisons. She…

“Barbie Doll,” written by an American poet, Marge Piercy, a beautiful, young teenage girl ends up killing herself for the sake of changing her appearance to the societal ideal of “perfection,” (Line 18). The perfect body image is an allusion to the Barbie doll, and the poem accurately depicts the ugliness of society as people expect girls to look, eat, and act in a certain way that is proven false in…

In the poem “Barbie Doll” written by Marge Piercy, the author addresses the stereotypical ideas of what society believes a woman should look like and how a woman should act. The title lends itself to help reinforce these themes of appearance and femininity by implying that women are to fashion themselves around the famous 1959 Mattel doll, Barbie, whose appearance some argue provides an unrealistic expectation for women to strive to achieve. Piercy goes on to show what happens to the unnamed…

finding their identity in the workplace. The speaker in "the secretary chant" describes herself as an overworked machine. The speaker feels much trapped in the workplace and has a sense of feeling overwhelmed with her job. The speaker In Marge Piercy’s "the secretary chant” makes the use of metaphors a lot in the poem. The speaker says "My Hips are a desk/ from my ears hang chain of paper clips/Rubber bands form my hair" (1039) meaning that she makes the focus about her hips to her…

planned out by the victim or it can be unexpectedly. Older adults or younger kids can commit suicide. One can never tell when a person is suicidal until its too late. In the poems “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson and “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy…

Cornelius Eady’s poem, “A Little Bit of Soap,” and Marge Piercy’s poem, “Barbie doll,” both address the struggle of navigating the physical changes of puberty under society’s menacing microscope. Already inherently painful, the distress caused by puberty is often compounded by physical transformations that an adolescent’s family and peers may consider negative. Such is the case in the works of both Eady and Piercy. Eady’s “A Little Bit of Soap” deals with a young man attempting to understand his…