Marge Piercy was born in Detroit in 1936 into the Jewish faith during the end of the Great Depression. She wrote and sold novels in order to pay for college and continued to write afterwards expanding into poetry. She has written primarily feminist works and currently resides in Massachusetts.
Barbie Doll
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.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
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.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
The speaker in "Barbie Doll" appears to be a heavy-set, Jewish woman that is desperate to receive approval of her body from other people. Her "great big nose and fat legs," are the main culprits of the criticism she receives. In order to meet the criteria that other people expect she tries diet and exercise, but nothing was working so she resorted to the logical option of killing herself by cutting off her nose and legs so that people would no longer mock her.
The speaker develops this scenario in a way so that the whole ordeal seems like it is just another typical life of a woman. The speaker talks about how "[t]his girlchild was born as usual" and how she "was healthy, [and] tested intelligent," in order to characterize her as an archetype of a woman. This tone continues as the speaker begins to speak of her death and funeral in the same manner stating that, "she cut off her nose and legs and offered them up," as if it is a perfectly normal thing to do.
As for the structure of the poem, it is written in such a way that each distinct section of her life is divided into different stanzas: one for childhood, one for her young adult years, her suicide, and finally her funeral. Each stanza is starkly different in content while maintaining a flippant tone about acceptance and suicide. The speaker's choice of a carefree tone adds to the mildly dark satire about the high standards of today's society from a aesthetic perspective and the affects that this can have on someone's life, culminating with suicide. The tone provides the speaker a path to satirize such a grave topic while making sure not to offend to great of a percentage of the population.
Your organization really helped to focus your analysis. Make sure that you're consistent in the way you talk about tone - you almost contradicted yourself a few times. Be self-aware when you discuss tone so that it's consistent.
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