Xueying jia
Professor Virgil
English 101B
05 April 2015
“Barbie Doll” a story of girls growing The main character of Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” is a normal girl. She tried so hard to please others and to accept the way she is. The first stanza is beginning with the sentence “this girlchild was born as usual”, which gives me the impression of the author is emphasizing the girl is like other common girls whose playing with dolls, miniature kitchen items and pretend make-up. It quickly makes a turn when a puberty classmate makes fun with her “great big nose and fat legs”. At this time, the girl begins to care about others thought and pay attention on her appearance. In the beginning of second stanza, it described the girl growing up positively as a normal human being. She has a healthy body, which poem said “strong arms and back”, and intelligent. However, she wants to be please by others and try to perfect herself as Barbie Doll. She lost herself, and does not realize her own positives such as “manual dexterity”. But everyone focus on her “fat nose” and “thick legs” rather than her inner quality. The girl wants to be the person others like so she listening to people’s advise and pushing herself to change in that way. “She was advised to play coy” and “exercise, diet. Smile and wheedle”. Therefore, she follows the game rule, losing weight, doing exercise, keeping smiling, which making herself to be fit in society successfully. The next line shows she gets enough in