Barbie Doll: A Girl's Quest for Perfect Plastic Proportions.
Society's cultural icons present an unrealistic and unattainable standard of beauty. The superficiality represented within cultural icons such as Barbie, revolves primarily around physical attributes rather than personal essence. The closer children come to acquiring the physical characteristics of the cultural icons set before them, the more socially acceptable they become. In Marge Piercy's poem Barbie Doll, Piercy examines the struggle of the girl child who tries to conform to society's preordained standard of beauty. Examining the negative influence society has on children, she illustrates through extremes how the progression of a small incident can lead to disaster. Making use of literary styles like comedy, satire, exaggeration and irony, Piercy addresses how society has distorted the characteristics a girl should possess. .
Piercy carefully constructs the idea of a girl child establishing that this girl could be anyone. Furthermore, Piercy adds to the concern being addressed because she has been stripped of a very important part of her identity from the beginning. .
Using comedy, Piercy examines how the girl child is trapped by a society that has already chosen the characteristics its females should possess. Rather than choosing the toys she gets to play with, girl child is, "presented dolls that did pee-pee / and miniature GE stoves and irons." (2-3 pg. 814)The comedy in this quote more deeply addresses that these toys are created for girls by a society that is trying to mold women into housewives; who nurture children, cook and clean. For girls at young ages issues of appearance shouldn't be paramount concerns. Piercy's use of humor in the following quote shows how society values beauty with importance regardless of age, "and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy." (4 pg. 814) The humor in this line reinforces our culture's emphasis on what are important feminine characteristics; although she is too young to understand the purpose of lipstick society wants her to know how to use it in the future.