Barbie Doll

Marge Piercy

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1971

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Simile

Piercy’s vivid use of simile not only in “Barbie Doll” but throughout her body of work serves to surprise the reader. In Line 16, when the character’s good nature wears out “like a fan belt,” the comparison to an automotive part is unusual, particularly in the sense that mechanical terms are uncommon when used to describe women in literature. This simile becomes a statement of multiple meanings: a further addition to the criticisms of objectification within the poem, a norm-breaking description of a woman as something sturdy as opposed to something small and fragile, and as a graphic illustration of how the girl feels, which helps the reader connect with her. The poet has done something similar in “What Are Big Girls Made Of?” by comparing a woman’s body to that of a sports sedan.

Diction

The poet uses formal diction throughout “Barbie Doll,” with word choices which set a sense of inescapability, as if all that happens within the poem is prescribed. In the very first line, the character is introduced as a “girlchild,” a compound noun which paints the very identity of the character as a girl from infancy. In Line 2, the word “presented” is used instead of something along the lines of “given” to tell the reader that the toys given to the girlchild are compulsory. The character is not “asked” but is instead “advised” (Line 12) in conflicting ways on her behavior. Even in death, she does not “rest” on satin but is “displayed” (Line 19).

The use of formal diction also offers a sense of irony at certain points. The conflicting “advice” given in Lines 12-13, for example, highlights the irony of the unwinnable expectations set on women. In Line 25, the formality of “to every woman a happy ending” in response to the death of the main character is ironic, because for the character, this was not a happy ending.

Imagery

Piercy’s use of very specific imagery punches in throughout the poem. The “dolls that did pee-pee” (Line 2), the “miniature GE stoves and irons” (Line 3), and the “wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy” (Line 4) offer highly visual representation of the world and expectations into which the girlchild is immediately brought. These images give the reader concrete examples of the societal pressures on women to wear makeup, look a certain way, and to be mothers and housekeepers.

Piercy showcases this imagery in the final stanza as well. The character lays in her casket in a “pink and white nightie” (Line 22), with the “undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (Line 20) and a “turned-up putty nose” (Line 21). These images have highly gendered “feminine” characteristics, but with a dark turn to them. She wears a pink and white nightie, much like that of a young girl’s—notice that “nightie” was chosen over something along the lines of “nightgown.” The image of the cosmetic returns, calling back to the toy lipstick of the first stanza, but now tied to the coroner, tied to death rather than youth. The character's new putty nose, a particularly vivid image, is used by the poet to touch on multiple points: on beauty standards and on the way women are often posthumously “rewritten” by others. It also reaches into a discussion on racism and antisemitism. Anti-Black and anti-semitic propaganda often disparages, others, and dehumanizes Black people and Jewish people for their facial features, including their noses. Although not directly spoken to in the poem, the repetitive focus on the character’s nose bears consideration into further meaning.