Barbie Doll' written by Marge Piercy (1973)This little girl was born as usualAnd presented dolls that peedAnd miniature GE stoves and ironsAnd little red lips the color of cherry candy. Then, in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a very big nose and big legs. She was healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant libido, and manual dexterity. She was going back and forth apologizing. Everyone saw a big nose on thick legs. He was advised to play coyly, asked to come cheerfully, exercise, diet, smile and cuddle. His good nature wore out like a fan belt. So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them In the coffin exposed on satin she lay With the undertakers' cosmetics painted on, A turned-up putty nose, Dressed in a pink and white nightie. Isn't she pretty? Everyone said it. Finally, perfect fulfillment. Every woman has a happy ending. Robert Frost beautifully said that “poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” In fact, poems aim to express deep and secretly guarded feelings through the processing of language. Poetry is a shareable and universal language of specific moods that any reader can relate to. It is the voice that speaks the truth. Very often, delicate subjects lead to sensitive poems like that of Marge Piercy which we will now scan. In the following stanzas, the poet depicts the harsh life of an innocent young girl, a victim of society's standards. The poem was shaped around three main themes: innocence, persecution and death, as we will now see. First of all, if we look closely at the first stanza, the most important, the innocence of childhood is depicted through the musicality of the verses. There is an assonance in "i" which sounds like a child's voice (world of innocence) and an alliteration in "s" which emphasizes the sweetness of this universe. In the meantime, we will notice that the poet knows the little girl since she uses the definite pronoun “This” (verse 1). She describes her as innocent, naive and passive as shown by the passive form: “was born; was presented” (verses 1-2). During her childhood, everything seemed to go rather well: she played girl's games like “dolls; GE stoves; lipsticks" (v.1-4) and she experiences a "magical puberty" (v.5)....... middle of paper ......urity and innocence that has been coming out of her ever since the very beginning of the poem but tarnished by tyrants. Verse 23 then takes on crucial importance since “everyone” looks at her to see if she finally meets the physical standards of beauty in death. “Putty” (v.21) and “consumption at last” (v.24) echo and underline the falsity of his environment and the importance given to the “façade”. Maybe she died in death because of that “putty nose” created through surgery. We can wonder if the poet shares the convictions of these madmen. From the last two verses we see clearly that this is not the case. There is irony in his words because a “happy ending” is only possible by fulfilling the criteria of consumer society instead of establishing one's true identity. If sharing feelings is one of the purposes of a poem, opening the reader's eyes can be another. Through this poem, Marge Piercy managed to take life by the throat, to capture its true essence. The expression of deep feelings has become possible both for the reader and for the poet, who shares her grief and anger against the devastating stereotypes of consumer society..