what is a song kind of like the poem "barbie doll" by marge piercy
"this girl child was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and 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,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
she went to and fro apologizing.
everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
she was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle.
her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
so her cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
in the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up butty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
consummation at last.
to every women a happy ending."
please help! (:
what does this poem mean?.. more specifically the last stanza?
When we are going toward someone we say
you are just like me
your thoughts are my brothers
word matches word
how easy to be together.
When we are leaving someone we say
how strange you are
we cannot communicate
we can never agree
how hard, hard and weary to be together.
We are not different nor alike
but each strange in his leather body
sealed in skin and reaching out clumsy hands
and loving is an act
that cannot outlive
the open hand
the open eye
the door in the chest standing open.
I need poems that are about appearance. I don't want poems that tell about someone's appearance but, maybe poems about the effects of when others insult someone for their appearance. Some poems that can relate to the poem Barbie Doll written by Marge Piercy.
I read the poem "Barbie doll" by Marge Piercy. I was wondering who you think the poem is directed to. At first I thought it was blaming the parents for buying their daughters a doll but Now I'm starting to thing she is blaming society/media for creating such a doll. What do you guys think. I have to write an essay based on who's to blame.
I am doing a presentation on this poem. We are going to interpret the poem with the class, and then try to involve them somehow. I was trying to get some suggestions on how to get the audience involved. What do ya think?
Barbie Doll
By: Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and 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,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
Barbie Doll has a strong note of sadness but it emphasizes not the girl's death but the dissapointments in her life. The only "scene" in the poem portrays the unnamed girl at rest in her casket, but the still body in the casket contrasts not with vitalitybut with fristration and anxiety: her life since puberty had been full of apologies and attempts to change her physical appearance and emotional makeup. The"consummation" she achieves in death is not, however, a triumph, despite what people say. Although the poem's last two words are "happy ending" this girl without a name has died in embarrassment and without fulfillment, and the final lines are ironic, questioning the whole idea of what "happy" means. The cheerful comments at the end lack force and truth because of what we already know; we understand them as ironic because they underline how unhappy the girl was and how false her cosmeticized corpse is to the sad truth of her life.
The poem suggests the falsity and destructiveness of those standards od female beauty that have led to the tragedy of the girls life. In an important sense, the poem is not really about death at all in spite of the face that the girl's death and her repaired corpse are central to it. As the title suggests, the poem dramatizes how standardized, commercialized notions of femininity and prettiness can be painful and destructive to those whose bodies do not precisely fit the conformist models, and the poem vigorously attacks those conventional standards and then widespread, unthinking acceptance of them.
That's what I got out of it, but I'm interested in some other viewpoints! What are your thoughts? I would love some more opinions! Thank you!!
I am reading a poem “Barbie Doll" by: Marge Piercy and I need to know what the lines "Her good nature wore out like a fan belt"
Does this mean it was sudden? Or slow? or what? please help
The construction of a woman
a woman is not made of flesh
of bone and sinew
belly and breasts, elbows and liver and toe.
She is manufactured like a sports sedan.
She is retooled, refitted and redesigned
every decade.
Cecile had been seduction itself in college.
She wriggled through bars like a satin eel,
her hips and ass promising, her mouth pursed
in the dark red lipstick of desire.
She visited in '68 still wearing skirts
tight to the knees, dark red lipstick,
while I danced through Manhattan in mini skirt,
lipstick pale as apricot milk,
hair loose as a horse's mane. Oh dear,
I thought in my superiority of the moment,
whatever has happened to poor Cecile?
She was out of fashion, out of the game,
disqualified, disdained,
dismembered from the club of desire.
Look at pictures in French fashion
magazines of the 18th century:
century of the ultimate lady
fantasy wrought of silk and corseting.
Paniers bring her hips out three feet
each way, while the waist is pinched
and the belly flattened under wood.
The breasts are stuffed up and out
offered like apples in a bowl.
The tiny foot is encased in a slipper
never meant for walking.
On top is a grandiose headache:
hair like a museum piece, daily
ornamented with ribbons, vases,
grottoes, mountains, frigates in full
sail, balloons, baboons, the fancy
of a hairdresser turned loose.
The hats were rococo wedding cakes
that would dim the Las Vegas strip.
Here is a woman forced into shape
rigid exoskeleton torturing flesh:
a woman made of pain.
How superior we are now: see the modern woman
thin as a blade of scissors.
She runs on a treadmill every morning,
fits herself into machines of weights
and pulleys to heave and grunt,
an image in her mind she can never
approximate, a body of rosy
glass that never wrinkles,
ever grows, never fades. She
sits at the table closing her eyes to food
hungry, always hungry:
a woman made of pain.
A cat or dog approaches another,
they sniff noses. They sniff asses.
They bristle or lick. They fall
in love as often as we do,
as passionately. But they fall
in love or lust with furry flesh,
not hoop skirts or push up bras
rib removal or liposuction.
It is not for male or female dogs
that poodles are clipped
to topiary hedges.
If only we could like each other raw.
If only we could love ourselves
like healthy babies burbling in our arms.
If only we were not programmed and reprogrammed
to need what is sold us.
Why should we want to live inside ads?
Why should we want to scourge our softness
to straight lines like a Mondrian painting?
Why should we punish each other with scorn
as if to have a large ass
were worse than being greedy or mean?
When will women not be compelled
to view their bodies as science projects,
gardens to be weeded,
dogs to be trained?
When will a woman cease
to be made of pain?
Ok i have to analyze a poem and write a five page paper i chose this poem called Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy. Can you please give me some ideas on what to put in my intro paragraph. how should i start my introduction?? Any ideas for a hook. Any other help would be great also!
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/barbie-doll/
Thank You !
Ok i have to analyze the poem write a five page paper on this poem called Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy. Can you please give me some ideas on what to put in my intro paragraph. Any ideas for a hook. Another help would be great also!
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/barbie-doll/
There is no difference between being raped
and being pushed down a flight of cement steps
except that the wounds also bleed inside.
There is no difference between being raped
and being run over by a truck
except that afterward men ask if you enjoyed it.
There is no difference between being raped
and being bit on the ankle by a rattlesnake
except that people ask you if your skirt was short
and why you were out alone anyhow.
There is no difference between being raped
and going head first through a windshield
except that afterward you are afraid
not of cars
but half the human race.
The rapist is your boyfriend's brother.
He sits beside you in the movies eating popcorn.
Rape fattens on the fantasies of the normal male
like a maggot in garbage.
Fear is a cold wind blowing
all of the time on a woman's hunched back.
Never to stroll alone on a sand road through pine woods,
never to climb a trail across a bald
without that aluminum in the mouth
when I see a man climbing toward me.
Never to open the door to a knock
without that razor just grazing the throat.
The fear of the dark side of headges,
the back seat of the car, the empty house
rattling keys like a snake's warning.
The fear of the smiling man
in whose pocket is a knife.
The fear of the serious man
in whose fist is locked hatred.
All it takes to cast a rapist is seeing your body
as jackhammer, as blowtorch, as adding-machine-gun.
All it takes is hating that body
your own, your self, your muscles that softens to flab.
All it takes it to push what you hate,
what you fear onto the soft alien flesh.
To bucket it out invincible as a tank
amored with treads without senses
to possess and punish in one act,
to rip up pleasure, to murder those who dare
live in the leafy flesh open to love.
declamation contest is what my school does every year, everyone has to choose a poem, memorize it, and recite it to the class and some judges, the next round they recite it to the entire school, next round is to parents...the winner gets $100 and 2 extra quiz grades in english...
yes i would.....i can relate to it...so yes i would be comfortable...
Matthew Arnold
Elizabeth Bishop
Countee Cullen
Robert Graves
Seamus Heany
Gerard Manley Hopkins
AE Housman
TE Hulme
Marge Piercy
Ezra Pound
Adrienne Rich
Theodore Roethke
Anne Sexton
Jean Toomer
thanks
obviously its about feminisim--
Barbie Doll
by Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE ovens and irons
and 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 intellegent,
posessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose and thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exersize, diet, smile, and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consumation at last.
To every woman a happy ending
But do you tihnk there is sugnificance as to why she repeats great big nose and fat legs? And her style of writing?
I'd like to see peoples interpretations of this poem, I really like it
I've already looked on her website, Wikipedia, and some other random sites, but I need one really good website that I don't have to pay for or sign up for. THANKS!
obviously its about feminisim--
Barbie Doll
by Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE ovens and irons
and 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 intellegent,
posessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose and thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exersize, diet, smile, and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consumation at last.
To every woman a happy ending
But do you tihnk there is sugnificance as to why she repeats great big nose and fat legs? And her style of writing?
I'd like to see peoples interpretations of this poem, I really like it
If society allows a human being to exist in a state free from restraints the human will flourish without limitations much like a tree that grows boundless in nature. Only nature itself with its streaks of "lightening" could prevent the tree's branches from stretching toward the sky. However, as Marge Piercy profoundly states in her poem, "A Work of Artifice," society often suceeds in skillfully stifling the growth of individuals, especially women.
Piercy employs the use of a vivid extended metaphor in the beginning lines of this poem in oreder to convey her feelings toward our cunning society. If a "bonsai tree" remains in nature free to reach its fruition ti could grow to "eighty feet tall." However, the "gardener" limits the growth of the tree placing it in an "attractive pot" and stunting it’s growth to a dwarf-like "nine inches." The "gardener" replaces the trees nature to grow with a manipulative lie telling the tree that its "domestic" and "weak" qualities should overpower its tendency to grow tall and strong. The pot, as well, limits the tree and places meager expectations of development on the bonsai. Society, the metaphorical gardener of young lives, places these same stifling boundaries on undeveloped human beings. When society plants the message to remain "small and cozy" in a young mind, the individual begins to believe that a conventional "pot," "attractive" to society provides the only true place for them to dwell. Society's fear of the unknown and what they cannot understand manifests itself in the manner in which they hinder the expansion of young minds into unexplored territories of knowledge.
Piercy begins a more obvious parallel between the bonsai tree and humans by stating that "one must begin very early to dwarf" the growth of living creatures. She alludes to the treatment of Asian women. In offer to remain petite and comply with society's standards Asian women have their feet "bound." However, the stifling of the growth of women extends beyond the physical into the manner in which society "cripple[s]" their brains and puts their "hair in curlers." At this point in the poem, Piercy narrows in on the treatment of women with her allusion to "curlers." Society captures women at an early age before they have enjoyed creative and intellectual freedom and stifles their growth by brainwashing them into remaining "domestic and weak" like the pruned bonsai tree. Piercy narrows in on the fact that those who love women have the most significant impact on them and influence their growth most significantly by stating that the "hands you love to touch" stunt a woman's growth the most.
Marge Piercy's obvious feelings toward society's treatment of women manifest themselves in "A Work of Artifice" much like many of her poems. She vividly utilizes the bonsai tree as an example of how one's emotional, physical, and intellectual growth often suffers at the loving hands of society's pruning gardeners
this analysis was made on this poem
"A Work of Artifice" by Marge Piercy
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high. .
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
these are the paragraphs i have so far but my teacher wants me to change it more
I like books that are well written. Authors I like: Anita Shreave, Norman Maclean, Marge Piercy, James Herriot... I don't want to read anything postmodern. I want a good story. I'd like a romantic story, with some mystery, and a lot of truth. By a living author. Any suggestions?
I have to find five errors and make revisions to those sentences but I can't find any.
"Poetry is very diverse. Different poets speak to different people. Different poets strike different chords. We all belong to a great endeavor, and the more good poets there are, the more people will read poetry." Marge Piercy
I feel like this quote expresses what poetry is the best. Not everyone will understand a certain poem. Poetry is a very personal thing since it is raw emotion. I agree with the part about “the more good poets there are, the more people will read poetry.” I think that the reason some don’t like poetry is because they have not found the right poet. People think that if they don’t like one poem then they won‘t like any, but they just haven’t found a poet that tickles their fancy.
paragraph*
Hi! I'm interested in *really good* contemporary Science Fiction and Fantasy novels written by women and with a feminist bent. I want stuff that's extremely well written.
I've read all of Ursula LeGuin and Octavia Butler, and some of Laurie J. Marks, Ellen Kushner, Marge Piercy, and Joanna Russ.
Thanks.
thanks for the suggestions! yes, i've read most of nalo hopkinson; that's exactly the tree i want to be barking up! i've read some tiptree as well, but didn't like her writing as much.
anyone else who's writing right now whose writing is really good? it's not just the feminist themes i'm interested in but also the great writing.
thanks!
