Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy - Poem Analysis (2024)

‘Barbie Doll’ was written and published in the early 1970s, during the period of second-wave feminism. Throughout the poem, the speaker explores the sentiments against which feminism was and still is fighting. She discusses gender and gender stereotypes through the story of a “girlchild.” The poem is filled with haunting and disturbing images that tell the story of a young woman’s life and death.

Barbie DollMarge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usualand presented dolls that did pee-peeand miniature GE stoves and ironsand 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,(...)Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

(...)

Read the full text of 'Barbie Doll'.

Summary

‘Barbie Doll‘ by Marge Piercy tells of the exorbitant and absurd expectations placed on young girls.

The poem begins with the birth of a “girlchild” who is immediately given all the toys she will need to learn how to be a good mother and wife. She has a “GE stove” and a baby doll, which requires diaper changes. The girl is immediately being trained in her future subservient role.

She enters puberty, and the insults of other children start to wear away at her. They say that she has “a great big nose and fat legs.” These judgments stay with this young woman for the rest of her life.

The speaker makes sure to emphasize all of the beautiful qualities this woman possesses, but neither she nor her peers are able to see and appreciate them. All they can see are her supposed “faults.”

Themes

Structure and Form

Literary Devices

Piercy makes use of several literary devices in‘Barbie Doll.’These include but are not limited to enjambment, imagery, and alliteration. The first of these, enjambment, is a common formal device in poetry that’s concerned with the way that lines end. If a line ends before the conclusion of a phrase or sentence, it is likely enjambed. For example, the transition between lines one and two of the first stanza as well as lines four and five and of the third.

Imagery is one of the most important literary devices that poets use. It refers to the way that poets trigger the reader’s senses with their descriptions of people, places, experiences, and more. For example, these lines from the beginning of the poem: “and presented dolls that did pee-pee /and miniature GE stoves and irons /and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.”

Analysis of Barbie Doll

Stanza One

This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
(…)
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

Barbie Dollbegins with the beginning of a girl’s life. This child, referred to as a “girlchild,” was born, the speaker states, “as usual.” It is important to note the use of the word “girlchild” in this context as the phrase has often been used throughout history as a derogatory term, as if one kid, a boy, is worth more than another, a girl.

This child’s life began in a way that will be quite familiar and relatable to many readers. She was given the toys that are traditionally given to girls and told to act appropriately to her gender. The child was given,

…dolls that did pee-pee

And miniature GE stoves and irons

These toys familiarly gendered to her sex, are meant to train this child in how to be a woman and a mother. From a young age, she is given these objects as if it is completely natural for a child to spend time changing a pretend baby’s diaper and cooking for an imaginary future family.

It is helpful to imagine the reaction if a “boychild” was given these same toys to play with. The speaker, and author, is hoping to make one question the ways in which we traditionally treat children of different genders.

The speaker continues on, adding to the list of objects that the child acquires at a young age. She is given “wee lipsticks” that are the color of “cherry candy.” They are “wee,” as they are meant for young hands and lips, and they are “cherry” red to connect to the makeup she will assumably be using when she is older.

The child’s childhood ends after the first four lines, and she enters puberty. It is here that she gets her first real-life taste of the contradictions inherent in being a woman in modern society. The speaker explicitly states, in what is a shocking and brutal way, that the children she met in school told the child that she has,

A great big nose and fat legs.

Stanza Two

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
(…)
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

In the second stanza, the speaker, narrating from an outsider’s perspective, as someone who is not drawn in by the ideologies of human society, states that the child, who is now becoming a woman, has a good number of positive attributes.

She is both “healthy” and “intelligent.” Her body is strong, and she has,

Abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.

These shortlists of attributes are all things that are completely natural for a woman to have but are often, and sometimes usually, frowned upon. Women have not been, and in many places still aren’t meant to be “strong” in any definition of the word. Additionally, they certainly are not meant to be skilled workers or have “Abundant sex drive.”

Stanza Three

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
(…)
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

The second half of Barbie Doll begins where the first left off, in describing the ways in which she was “advised” to act. She should, at all times, be “coy,” as well as “hearty.” Her life should be filled with “exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle.” This last word, “wheedle,” means to use flattery to get what one wants. She should be endearing in all ways and still maintain her good nature.

Unfortunately, but not unusually, as she has aged, her “good nature” has become “wor[n] out.” She is no longer the kind child and young woman that she was in the past. The world has ground her down to their standards.

Finally, as if giving in to the teasing and torment inflicted upon her, the woman cuts.

…off her nose and her legs

And offer[s] them up.

Stanza Four

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on,
(…)
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

The fourth stanza of Barbie Doll begins with a funeral. It becomes clear that the woman has died and that the speaker has thrust the reader into her funeral proceedings. The “casket” in which she lays is sitting on “satin,” as if luxuriating in a final beauty.

The “undertaker” has taken the time to fix up her face, paint on “cosmetics,” and craft for her a “turned-up putty nose.” She finally has the face that she was made to want.

Additionally, she has been dressed beautifully. She is in a “pink and white nightie,” and everyone who sees her thinks that she is finally “pretty.”

About Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy was born in March of 1936 in Detroit, Michigan, to a working-class family. As a young woman, Piercy studied at the University of Michigan, where she was the first member of her close family to attend college. She earned an MA from Northwestern University and throughout the 60’s worked as an organizer of political movements. She was inclined with the Students for a Democratic Society and many groups affiliated with feminism, environmental policy and anti-Vietnam War protests.

Throughout her life, Piercy has published approximately 20 novels and 20 books of poetry. Much of her work focuses on social issues, written from a feminist position. One of her most popular works, He, She, and It, published in 1991, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

In regards to her poetic works, her volume, The Moon is Always Female, is considered to be one of the classic texts of feminism. Her most recent collection came out in 2015 and was titled Made in Detroit.

She currently lives and works in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, alongside her husband.