Barbie Doll

Barbie Doll: analysis

Introduction

Barbie Doll is a free-verse poem in four stanzas that tells the short life of a girl. She is given toy stoves and lipsticks, mocked at puberty for her nose and legs, and advised how to behave. Worn out, she cuts off her nose and legs and "offered them up". The last stanza shows her laid out in a casket, finally called pretty.

The poem is a satire of the beauty standards pressed on girls. Its title names the doll whose shape those standards copy. It is included in Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy.

Summary

The first stanza begins with a girlchild born in the usual way. She is given dolls that wet themselves, miniature stoves and irons, and tiny lipsticks. Then, at puberty, a classmate tells her she has a big nose and fat legs.

The second stanza lists her strengths. She is healthy and intelligent, with strong arms and back. She has a strong sexual drive and skilled hands. Yet she goes about apologizing. Everyone sees only a fat nose on thick legs.

In the third stanza she receives advice. She is told to play coy and to be hearty, to exercise, diet, smile and wheedle. Her good nature wears out like a fan belt. So she cuts off her nose and her legs and offers them up.

The fourth stanza shows her lying in a casket on satin. She wears the undertaker's make-up, a turned-up putty nose and a pink and white nightie. Everyone says she looks pretty. The poem ends with "Consummation at last" and "To every woman a happy ending".

Themes and meaning

The poem's main subject is how girls are trained for a narrow role. Before she can speak, the girl is "presented" with dolls, stoves, irons and lipsticks. Her future as mother, housekeeper and beauty is laid out in toys. The word "presented" makes these gifts sound like instructions.

A second theme is the power of a single judgement. One classmate's remark about her "great big nose and fat legs" changes everything. Line 11 shows the remark spreading until "Everyone saw" only those features. Her health, intelligence and strength in lines 7 to 9 count for nothing.

The poem also shows how conflicting advice wears a person down. She must be "coy" and also "come on hearty". She must diet, smile and wheedle. The demands cannot all be met. The fan-belt simile in lines 15 and 16 shows a working part that simply gives out.

The ending is open to several readings. Taken literally, the girl mutilates herself and dies, but many readers take the cutting and the casket as figures. Some see a marriage in the nightie and the word "Consummation", others cosmetic surgery in the "putty nose". In every reading, she is called pretty only once she is lifeless and made-up. The "happy ending" is bitterly ironic, since approval comes only at the cost of her self.

Tone

The tone is flat, ironic and angry beneath its calm. The first line says she was born "as usual", as if reporting something routine. Baby words like "pee-pee" and "wee" mimic the sweetness of girls' toys.

The middle stanzas list facts in a clipped way. The plain statement "She went to and fro apologizing" carries quiet pity. The fan-belt simile is deliberately unromantic.

The tone turns darkest at the end. The question "Doesn't she look pretty?" is grotesque beside a casket. The closing lines borrow the language of fairy tales and romance. The phrase "a happy ending" is said with open sarcasm. The flat voice makes the horror sharper.

Form and structure

The poem is in free verse, with four stanzas of six, five, seven and seven lines. The lines vary widely, from 4 to 15 syllables. There is no metre or rhyme scheme.

Some end words repeat instead of rhyming. The word "legs" closes three lines, tracking the insult through the poem. The word "said" closes both the classmate's line and the mourners' line, linking the insult to the final praise. Speech appears without quotation marks, so other voices merge into the narration.

Each stanza ends on a short, blunt sentence. The last two lines stand as fragments. They read like captions under the final picture.

Poetic devices

Irony line 25

To every woman a happy ending. The fairy-tale phrase is applied to a corpse. The irony condemns the standards that reward her only in death.

Simile line 16

like a fan belt. Her patience is compared to a machine part that wears out and snaps. The image is mechanical and unsentimental.

Diction line 4

wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy Childish words and sweets dress up a beauty product. Girlhood is shown being trained for make-up early.

Juxtaposition line 11

Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs. Placed right after the list of her strengths, the line shows how one insult outweighs them all.

Hyperbole line 17

So she cut off her nose and her legs The extreme act can be read literally or as an image of giving up her self. Either way it exaggerates the cost of fitting in.

Imagery line 21

a turned-up putty nose Putty is soft filler. The nose is false and moulded, like a doll's.

Rhetorical question line 23

Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said. The mourners admire her appearance only now. The question exposes how shallow their approval is.

Double meaning line 24

Consummation at last. Consummation means completion and also the sealing of a marriage. The word supports both the death and the marriage readings.

Asyndeton line 14

exercise, diet, smile and wheedle The verbs pile up like a list of chores. The pace shows how relentless the demands are.

Words worth knowing

girlchild

A girl baby. The compound stresses that she is sorted by sex from birth.

coy

Pretending shyness, especially in a flirtatious way.

exhorted

Strongly urged.

wheedle

To coax or flatter someone to get one's way.

putty

A soft paste that can be shaped and sets hard. Here it suggests a false, moulded nose.

Consummation

Completion or fulfilment. It also means the sealing of a marriage by sexual union.

What readers have said

• Reads the ending literally, as the girl fatally harming herself to meet impossible standards, and finds the poem too extreme. Blah Blah Blah, 2007
• Finds the ending unrealistic and ineffective, and wishes the poem showed more of how the girl felt. doonyryan, 2008
• Argues she never literally cuts anything off, reading the nightie as a wedding dress and the poem as about marriage. Ashlee, 2008
• Sees cosmetic surgery instead, with the putty nose as a plastic nose and pink and white as Barbie's colours. Angela, 2008
• Reads the casket as the newlyweds' bed, drawing on the saying that marriage is the tomb of love. Carl, 2008
• Takes the poem as a warning about how harsh words can drive people to extremes. Alyssa, 2007