The poem demonstrates tone well using her emotions and feeling toward turning fifteen. This author takes her own experience and puts it into the poem. She describes the time she turned fifteen and how it made her felt. Cofer’s figure of speech is obvious showing the readers that she does not want to grow up. As she is transitioning into womanhood she seems to struggle with the idea of being a woman who wears satin slips and not the innocent girl who plays with doll. With adulthood comes more responsibilities and she herself must take on household tasks such as washing her own clothing and sheets. This will prepare her for marriage. She undergoes so many bodily transformations, practically overnight, that make her feel uncomfortable. Her menstrual cycle starts, which she feels is shameful. She is growing out of her innocence into a woman and dolls are no longer a choice in the path she must follow. All of which is overwhelming for her to take in, she just wants the anxiety of growing up to pass.…
The girl apologizes for not being what they want her to be and she tries to change herself into what they would like. The poem says “She was advised to play coy, exhorted to come on hearty, exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle,” this explains that she tries her hardest to change herself and fit in. Eventually she figures out that no matter how hard she tries she still can not become what they want of her. Imagery is shown by the standards of the people and that the Barbie doll is not a real person and no one can live up to her, but they have not realized that.…
So I re-read the poem, this time looking at it from a feminist point of view. And it still upset me. I realized that this girl is being taught that women are not to “do” anything. They are to sit around and look pretty. The daughter sits there, “transfixed by its loveliness and mindful of [her] mother’s wishes,” which are seemingly to train her to be and act just like this doll (Minard, 1984). Here is this girl, seven years old, already being taught that she is to look pretty without really having an opinion on anything.…
In the second half of the poem, a new facet of the speaker's attitude is displayed. In line 17, she wants to improve the ugliness of her "child" by giving him new clothes; however, she is too poor to do so, having "nought save homespun cloth" with which to dress her child. In the final stanza, the speaker reveals poverty as her motive for allowing her book to be sent to a publisher (sending her "child" out into the world) in the first place. This makes her attitude seem to contradict her actions. She is impoverished, yet she has sent her "child" out into the world to earn a living for her.…
In the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy the struggle many young girl nowadays face is portrayed.…
Society today, has changed people in the way how they act, and dress. The short story Barbie Q explains that a Barbie is the ideal woman. The Barbie is an example of what women believe to be perfect. The quote “So what if we didn’t Get our new bendable legs Barbie in nice clean boxes and had to buy them on Maxwell street all water soaked and sooty”(Cisneros). This quote means that anyone would buy a Barbie for a cheaper price because they didn’t have the money at the time and who would care if the dolls were wet or smoked. For example the barbie with the melted leg putting a dress on the doll would cover the leg. this event talks about women these days where men rate the women from very beautiful to ugly as they show in the story where the…
Piercy uses characterization in its raw form, writing "She was healthy, tested intelligent / possessed strong arms and back / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity" (7-9). The characterization shows that the girl makes a strong human that should feel good about herself. These traits do not prove to be enough- without declaring anything, Piercy makes the point that social pressure overcomes even the strong kids. The girl, instead of feeling good about herself, "went to and fro apologizing" (10). Piercy makes use of diction with the word "apologizing"; in the poem, it seems like the girl is actually saying "sorry". But, the word apologizing shows regret, in this case, regret of not fitting in better. By saying she apologized, Piercy is really telling us she went through years of humiliation and…
She begins the poem with a neutral tone. In the last two lines of the first stanza, she introduces complication when the young girl goes through puberty and the outcome is less than delightful. Here the tone is resentful, that anything less than perfect is flawed. The second stanza begins back in the neutral tone, but not as neutral. The stanza begins with a list of qualities that the girl has, which is everything a "normal" happy girl could have; yet she still did not meet the norms of society. Then the tone changes in the last two lines to express a sense of frustration as the girl feel the need to go through life apologizing for her image. She was not what society expected a girl to look like and she slowly became a victim of society's expectations. The third stanza is full of aggravation and frustration. The girl is fed up with her image and decides to have plastic surgery done to her nose and her legs. She then dies but ultimately achieves a happy ending of finally being accepted by society. Through tone, Piercy helped the reader understand the meaning of the poem.…
The fifth stanza shows the mother preparing her daughter for Sunday school, and gives us a better understanding of how young the girl really is. The poem describes white shoes on her feet and white gloves on her “small brown hands.” This physical description demonstrates the daughter’s purity and youth, which heightens the emotional impact of her…
There are about four different tones used. The first tone encountered is a story telling tone; it seems as if the speaker is telling a story, neither positive nor negative. Just a story, neutral sounding almost emotionless as the speaker talks about the young woman’s childhood. However this tone quickly changes to one of judgment in line 5 where it says: “then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: / you have a great big nose and fat legs” (5-6). After this line, however, the tone changes yet again; this time to a peppy, happy, upbeat one. The poem stays this way for the next three lines as the speaker lists out all of the girls positive qualities. These qualities just so happen to be qualities that society believe that she needs to be a good housewife. After this line the poem reverts back to the earlier tone of judgment for the next couple of lines. Just like before the tone changes rapidly and sounds helpful. Only the advice that the the speakers reports the young woman got is anything but helpful. She is advised to “play coy” and to “come on hearty/ to exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle” (13-15). In these lines the young woman is told that she is not good enough the way she is naturally; that she needs to change to be accepted. Then the poem reverts back to the earlier neutral tone until the twenty-third line where, as stated above, the tone changes to one of…
What toy has everything anyone could ever ask for? (Pause for 2 seconds) If you are thinking of Barbie, then you are correct. Barbie was my favorite toy as a child and it still is for many little girls today. Today, I am going to talk about how Barbie was designed, how she has changed over the years, and how Barbie affects American culture. Here is Barbie’s story.…
The form of the poem was written in free verse style. It consists of four stanzas and each stanza tells a different part of the girl’s life. The girl goes from life being simple, playing with toys and having friends to growing up, worrying about looks, what others think, and being judged. These pressures on a young girl growing into a woman can be extreme and change their whole life. The poem begins with the description of a normal child no different from any other child, “The girl was born as usual” (1). There is a transition in the first stanza lines five and six, where the girl goes from young and happy playing with Barbie’s to an adolescent girl being judged by society. The second stanza explains how no matter how perfect the girl is society makes her feel flawed. The third stanza shows how the girl is willing to…
“Seen through Rose-Tinted glasses:” The Barbie Doll in American Society. By Marilyn Motz; supports the highly debated topic that the toy Barbie produced by Mattel is a bad influence, on young girls. Motz is claiming that the young female child envisions herself as Barbie, and with Barbie resembling an older more mature woman. Something that Barbie’s age group cannot obtain, in till they grow older and more mature themselves. However, Barbie is just a toy, her resemblance, her actions, as a doll is, solely up to the child. Adults looking into their daughter’s childhood are simply over thinking what a three to eleven year old can produce inside her mind.…
In the past, women were always considered the subordinate gender that was expected to powder their nose and stay at home to be a homemaker. Even now, despite the movement to liberate women from stereotypical gender roles, women are still seen as the inferior gender that is discriminated against in society. As suggested by the popular Barbie doll created by Mattel, the idealized image of a woman in our patriarchal society is one who takes care of the home and is flawlessly beautiful with perfect skin, long legs, small waist, and slender figure. The Barbie doll is used as a tool for patriarchy in that it reinforces the notion that women should be domestic workers and maintain a feminine outer appearance. Also, patriarchal values affect girls starting at a young age as they unconsciously begin to believe that Barbie is what a woman should look and be like. With the appeal and popularity of this doll for the past several years, it is difficult to alter the notions of womanhood suggested by this doll. This implies that patriarchy is something we can not permanently overthrow because it is so deeply rooted in our society.…
This poem seems to be about a person who’s describing or expressing a girl’s appearance and how her personality is.…