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More handpicked essays just for you.
Bullying in the school system
Bullying during adolescence
Bullying on children and teenagers
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People who have strived for achieving acceptance or beauty so that society could accept them. This strive though has come at a cost and led people to drastic measures such as depression, self-harm, or serious health issues like starvation or excessive exercising. In the two poems “Hanging Fire” and “Barbie Doll”, the two teenagers struggle with acceptance and both struggle trying to gain them. In a teenager age, they are more vulnerable as they are trying to figure out who they are as a person, leaving them in a fragile state. Throughout their life, they will be peer pressured by friends, classmates, and family who try to point out what is wrong with them and what should be fixed even though normally everything is fine. It is the constant need …show more content…
In the poem “Barbie Doll” the speaker take more drastic measures to make herself acceptable to society. In line12 the speaker takes drastic measures to fix herself, “So she cut off her nose and legs.” This action will lead to her death in the end of the poem which would not have happened if her peers did not mock her about the way her nose and legs looked. People are aware of their own imperfections, but when people mock them and do not accept them because of it, that is when the drastic measures of starvation, excessive exercising, and depression can begin. It can happen without the pressures of society, but if society mocks them, it pushes the person further in to a state of …show more content…
In lines 1 and 7 she was fine before she was mocked in her teenage years, “This girlchild was born as usual” and “She was healthy, tested intelligent”. Piercy shows the readers that before she was told of her imperfections, that she was a completely healthy and normal girl. She could have lived long pasted her teenage years, but with society telling her that her nose and legs were not considered perfect, she cut them off and died. Though Piercy did exaggerate the action, young teenagers and young adults have actions that leads to death. Some people starve, excessive exercise, Botox injections, plastic surgery, or even take pills to lose weight. These actions cost the lives of girls and boys all over the world and as society grows with more ways to bring out the negativity in a person’s body image, society should try to bring out positivity and confidence in everyone. In the poem “Hanging Fire” the speaker looks back at the choices she has made throughout her high school life and questions many aspects of her life. She questioned certain imperfection of beauty she had to deal with even though they are completely common in many teenagers. The reader can see the speaker questioning her beauty in lines 6-7 and 28-30 “How come my knees are //always so ashy?” and “Why do I have to be// the one //wearing braces”. Though these imperfections are normal for a teenager, society has made many
Both poems are sans rhyme scheme and have informal structures, which intentionally or not, fit very well with the frantically changing mood of the teenage years. For instance, a formal villanelle structure and iambic rhythm are left out because they are organized and premeditated, which are two adjectives that do not describe the typical teenager’s life. If one could turn these years into paper and ink, it would look like “History of Desire” and “Hanging Fire”; they are messy enough to show the angst, and neat enough to show hope for adulthood. This is why these poems are both grouped into stanzas. “History of Desire” is grouped into ten four line stanzas, followed by a final couplet. “Hanging Fire” is built from three stanzas; eleven, twelve, and twelve lines respectively. Both “History of Desire” and “Hanging Fire” reflect on former loves, and are narratives about being seventeen and fourteen years old. Therefore these qualities are purposely included to convey the distracted and unconstructed life of a t...
The two poems “Hanging Fire” and “Teenagers” both have some things in common, but also share some different concepts. The poem “Hanging Fire” main concept is talking about her fears, thoughts and worries. It’s also talking about how she has to go through life situations on her own The main concept of the short poem “Teenagers” is mostly talking about the lack of communication of her and her parents. As a teenager her two parents shut her out of her life with no explanation, Shut the doors along with their mouths. Although the two poems don’t have everything in common, they do share some similarities. What they have in common is their points of view both poems are directly talking to the speaker, in this case its me. While reading the poems
Everyone dreams of being “perfect”, but what they don’t know is that they are perfect. One just has to see within themselves. Everyone is uniquely and secretly beautiful, but that gets taken away because it is not what society wants. What society wants is for women’s self-esteem to be broken so that they can be morphed into a product of someone else's idea of perfect. In “Barbie Doll” Piercy argues that the pressures put on women by society affect their self-esteem. No one needs to change who they are for anyone. If anyone wants to change, they should change for themselves! Being you is all that really matters. The key to beauty is confidence. Something that everyone should keep in mind is that, don’t let someone change who you are, to become what they need; otherwise you don’t need them in your
In “Suicide Note” composed by Janice Mirikitani, Mirkitani describes the speaker as a college student who kills herself after not receiving a perfect grade point average. When people look at her body lying down on a cover of snow, they perceive that her suicide is due to her inability to become perfect. However, on a deeper meaning, the suicide symbolizes her inability to realize the concepts of family love, hard work, and happiness. To begin with, when Mirkitani’s speaker experiences the stress from her parents as a daughter, she compares herself to a son in the family. The speaker describes herself as “if only [she] were a son,.
The poem starts with the line, “This girlchild was born as usual,” which suggests that as soon as a girl is born, society already expects her to learn the role she will soon play in when she hits puberty (1). Thus, showing why we are given dolls as little girls to illustrate how we should act and appear according to society. After we learn all the roles we will soon take part in, “the magic of puberty,” hits and girls immediately begin applying the ideals to their own lives (5). As if this attempt to conform is not enough we have other people telling us we are not to perfect. “You have a great big nose and fat legs,” says a classmate to the girl (6). This type of pressure can slowly but surely destroy even the little confidence women do have in themselves.
The quote is now that he’s an adult. THe narrator also quotes “So okay, sure people laughed at you and you know why, because you looked really funny. This quote reveals that the narrator tried significant because By spending so much time trying to find yourself, you’re slowly losing yourself. This means that it shows that over time the narrator has matured emotionally and learned from the experience. Additionally, in this letter “Just be yourself” the narrator is looking back at her rite of passage with regret. In the passage it states “Let me ask you how’s it all working out? Not very well, am I right? the way of trying to find herself isn’t working and she's losing herself by drowning herself in all opposite and she’s taking on too many things at the same time. Furthermore, in “Hanging, Fire” these different clubs. It matters because the thing that she thinks that is helping is doing the exact throughout the poem the narrator shows that she’s very anxious about growing up. She says “Suppose I die before graduation…” This means that the narrator might be concerned that her mother isn’t able to take care of her. This matters because she might not be able to get the support she needs financially and or
As a child a role model is need to be guided toward the right path. Being a child who is neglected, the fear of being different holds them back from being who they were meant to be. This poem is filled with symbolization that makes the reader connect with the speaker's emotions and thoughts. "Hanging Fire" written by Audre Lorde is a poem where the protagonist talks about all her fears and isolation; she is a little girl who wants guidance from her mother who is behind a closed door. The speaker is living in a world where appearance is everything, so asks herself, "How come my knees are always so ashy" (Lorde lines 6-7).
The girls feel that people need to mask their imperfections and true selves to uphold the image of how they are supposed to be. These dolls were found in a less than desirable place, such as “Lying on the street next to some tool bits ,and platform shoes with the heels all squashed, and a florescent green wicker wastebasket, and aluminum foil, and hubcaps, and a pink shag rug, and windshield wiper blades, and dusty mason jars, and a coffee can full of rusty nails”. They find another Barbie with heals in the depths of junk. They cover up the physical flaws of the burnt barbies with pretty outfits such as the “Prom Pinks” dress. One of the girls state “as long as you don't lift her dress, right? - who’s to know.” This attempt to cover up where the dolls came from and their imperfections seem to parallel their feelings about themselves and where they come from. The girls have an image of how their dolls would be if they were new. This could be the role society plays on the image of how women are supposed to be and look
In comparing two poems on Anorexia such as late poets Eavan Boland and Louise Glück, we look into the lives of two individuals who struggled with eating disorders. While eating disorders are still a problem in the world today we don’t often see the emotional and mental taxes up close and personal. With these two poems on Anorexia, we get to see perspectives of the way women view their bodies that aren’t easily accessible. In reading the two works, there are striking differences and they merit thorough analysis.
In the short story, “Barbie-Q” by Sandra Cisneros, you can see how ones social class can affect their lifestyle and outlook on the world. The theme of this short story composed by Sandra Cisneros is destitution. Cisneros starts the story with incidental symbolism, a portrayal of the Barbie dolls "Yours is the one with mean eyes and a ponytail” (14) and "Mine is the one with bubble hair” (14), then precedes to explain the dolls attire. Which clearly they made themselves "This and a dress invented from an old sock when we cut holes here and here and here…” (14). We can see Cisneros' aim was to furnish the onlooker with the kind of circumstance the characters are in and how they manage being poor to the point that they can't have decent looking Barbie dolls, nice outfits, or a good quantity of toy accessories.
At the age of fifteen I started to question my sexuality. At the time I did not know how to explain the feelings I was having which led to a lot of confusion in my life. As I started to get older, I started to struggle even more to the point of where I had depression. Serbia is a very conservative country and I knew that if I was “different” from everyone else I wouldn’t be accepted. My mother grew up in a culture and century where being gay was the greatest shame one could have; so how could she live with a daughter that is gay? The biggest fear I had when I was a teenage was disappointing my parents for being different, so I decided to keep it to myself. I felt exactly like the girl in the in the poem, “Suicide Note” written by Janice Mirikitani. Her biggest fear was disappointing her parents, which eventually led her to take her own life. “Not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough” are repetitive lines that we see throughout the whole poem. The author’s use of repetition is a way for us to see the main point; to see the struggles of this young girl and experiences what she’s going
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
It is most often associated with pre-teenage and adolescent females but is applicable to any age group. A person with Barbie Syndrome attempts to emulate the doll’s physical appearance, even though the doll has attainable body proportions (Wall Street Journal). Self-esteem for girls is a sensitive topic, because odds are most girls want to change something about themselves. Whether it is her hair color, skin color, eye color, and even body shape. Some sources say that one culprit is the fictional person Barbie, this is due to her unrealistic body and the fact she’s tall, blonde, and blue eyed. "Girls exposed to Barbie reported lower body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape" than those who had been given dolls reflecting larger body types or no dolls at all” (CNN). Its been shown that girls who played with her as kids have this desire to look just like her because society has put this pressure on girls that in order to be pretty you have to be a tall size 2 blonde, this is believed to create an endemic of girls, teens and adolescents with anorexia. When Mattel decided to create these new dolls to help promote a healthy body image for young girls who can’t look like the original Barbie, its made society redefine what it means to be pretty. But, why have we as a society allowed for this toy to define our standards of beauty? One article from Time Magazine has said that this doll has lead girls to not only feeling bad about themselves, but has made eating disorders more prevalent. “The doll has led many girls toward eating disorders, body image issues, physical transformation, and lowered confidence” (Time
In addition, Plath demonstrates the effect that this double standard can have on young women’s emotions when she Esther becomes extremely mindful of her own virginity, “that weighed like a millstone around my neck.” The simile of a “millstone” reflects the weight of these thoughts that are dragging her downwards into depression, and since they are “around [her] neck,” this prevents her from escaping the damaging
In "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy self-loathing, self-feedback, and harassing is the fundamental point. Piercy makes it clear to the peruser what the purpose of the sonnet is about. With the sonnet finishing it suicide it makes it considerably clearer for the peruser to understand that what a lady experiences when managing things, for example, harassing can prompt passing. In the start of the sonnet Piercy is clarifying what is not preferred about the young lady "everybody saw a fat nose on thick legs" (Piercy 11) not what was inside, and what the young lady found in herself. As time went on the young lady just seen what others was seeing not what she once had seen inside herself? This is the place the self-loathing begins to become possibly the most important factor from the tormenting, and with this is the place everything gradually except doubtlessly starts to go downhill. Once a man is conveyed to self-loathing it is difficult to get them out. It is a progressing fight that happens to be endless until themselves or someone else can haul them out of it, and numerous lady experience this in the public arena once a day. In Marge Piercy's "The Tale of Hope Chapter 9" she clarifies the diverse prevention's that she went through, and how she needed to defeat every one that came her direction. By understanding this it gives a decent knowledge on why Piercy may have kept in touch with this sonnet in any case. Understanding that there are numerous individuals out there who need to see you fall gives one trust that one will transcend everything to demonstrate them wrong, and this is indicated when Piercy says that "in her innovative space bearings are more fierce and fruitful than numerous individuals would endeavor to hope for" (Chapter 9 249) hence, she could demonstrate that what others need to say in regards to you don't implies