Marge Piercy Research Paper

Grover Cleveland High School Kristen Ferrara
Mrs. Lakas Period 3 June 8, 2008

Marge Piercy A lot of authors express their emotions, thoughts and feelings through works of literature. Things they hear and see, as well as own life experiences influence some authors. Marge Piercy, a well-known author, was inspired by the stories her grandmother and mother would tell her throughout her childhood. Piercy was also encouraged by her mother to be observant and to remember what she would observe. Born on March 31, 1936, in Detroit, Piercy’s family was like many other families in that time, affected by the great depression. Her mother, Bert Bernice Bunnin, born in Philadelphia, had lived also in Pittsburgh and Cleveland; her father Robert Douglas Piercy grew up in a small town in the soft coal mining region of Pennsylvania. They had not been living in Detroit long. Her father, out of work for some time, got a job installing and repairing heavy machinery at Westinghouse. When Piercy was little, they moved into a small house in a working-class neighborhood in Detroit. Piercy credits her mother and grandmother for making her a poet. They would both
The woman who did all that she could was laid in her casket, “with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on, a turned-up putty nose, dressed in a pink and white nightie. Doesn’t she look pretty everyone said.” Finally, the woman satisfied everyone who stood above her dead body. Another theme for this poem would be social issues. Women are popular amongst others because of the way they dress, the cars they drive, how they look and how thin they are. In “Barbie Doll,” Piercy shows that people are pleased and more attracted by women who wear a lot of make up and get plastic surgery to look younger. The natural beauty of the woman who cut off her nose and legs wasn’t good enough for society, but with her “new nose” and make up, the people accept her