Puce Fairy Book
Alice Major’s “Puce Fairy Book” is a satire. The title hints that the fairy book or story being told is somewhat majestic. Puce is a shade of purple and purple represents royalty. Thus the title represents something that is almost magical and very unlikely to attain. The poem itself raises the issue’s of image. Society has an idea of the perfect girl and the poem suggests that the expectations are unreal. Society has to realize that perfection does not exist. The fairy tale girls from these stories are part of a perfect make belief world, they do not really exist. Major uses a variety of fairy tale beauties to get her point across. Men expect women to be that kind of fairy tale girl but in reality they are not. The line that best expresses this belief is “my foot was too big to fit into it.”(Major 36) The girl admits her imperfections and she is comfortable with them. However, the boy she is with insists upon making her into something that she is never going to be. The main character is the girl that the boy is trying so desperately to change but she never ends up changing. Instead she openly confesses all of her imperfections and lets him know that is all that she can be. Either he likes it or he decides not to. He
The poem is set in no specific time or place other than a time when society has their perfect image of a girl. There is a predominant atmosphere that suggests disappointment from both the girl and the boy. The girl is sad that the boy will not accept who she is and the boy is sad that she will not change. It suggests that love is not as easy as one would want it to be. The setting of disappointment and reality balances quite well. The atmosphere that is created through this balance definitely reinforces the theme. As long as someone keeps on trying to change who they are or who somebody else is, society will never be able to move on. Reality will be non existent to the majority as long as they believe in the false hopes and ideas that perfection actually exists. Major’s poem is a satire of reality versus fiction. She uses imagery quite effectively. Major allows the reader to picture the fairy tale beauties through her descriptive and figurative language. She explains the fairy tale images down to the very last detail making it easy to imagine in one’s mind. Her sentences are simple and short keeping a poetic flow in them. The simplicity suggests that people can be just like the sentences. People do not have to be glamourous and unreal to be happy. Major uses very straightforward words to get her point across as easily as possible. There is no window dressing, just short, sweet and simple the same way people should be. The character she uses does not change but she is ready for the political correctness. Atwood’s main character is trying to make others realize
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Approximate Word count = 1067
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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