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The way our culture has a tendency to view other individuals by there appearance will probably never change. In some way everyone has it set in his or her mind what makes a person "perfect". These characteristics include personal appearance, wealth and intelligence. We do not always get the chance to get to know a person, but rather make assumptions. Two poems, which reveal different perceptions of someone, include Richard Cory and The Barbie Doll.
In The Barbie Doll, the author writes about a girl' s life. The author starts off by describing her childhood. She was given dolls and toys like any other girl and she also wore hints of lipstick. This girl was healthy and rather intelligent. Even though she had possessed many good traits she was still looked at by others as "the girl with a big nose and fat legs". She exercised, dieted and smiled as much as possible to please those around her. She became tired of pleasing everyone else and decided to commit suicide. During her funeral those who she had tried to please in the past were the ones to comment about how beautiful she looked. Finally she had received the praise she was longing for.
In contrast, Richard Cory was viewed as the gem of the neighborhood, unlike The Barbie doll. Richard Cory was a man loved by all. He was a man that society had put up on a pedestal. He had the looks, wealth and the manner that everyone wanted. Even though people did not really know him they wanted to live like him an...
When the narrator first compares her Barbies, she thinks that she needs perfect and new Barbies to fit in with everybody else. The narrator does understand that her family does not have money, but she simply works around it. Although, she wants more Barbies it was unlikely for them to get them. The narrator says, “Because we don’t have money for a stupid-looking boy doll when we’d both rather ask for a new Barbie outfit next christmas. (14-15)” The narrator has to make do with what she has. She can not have a boy Barbie because it is not in her parents budget. This affects her and it makes her lose confidence in herself because she does not have what everybody else has. After the narrator receives her partially messed up Barbies, she says, “And if the prettiest doll, Barbie’s MOD’ern cousin Francie with real eyelashes, eyelash brush included, has a left that that’s melted a little-so? If you dress her in her new ‘Prom Pinks’ outfit, satin splendor with matching coat, gold belt, clutch, and hair bow included, so long as you don’t lift her dress, right?-who’s to know. (16)” Even though the Barbie has a melted left foot, the narrator moves past this. She will just cover it up with a dress. The narrator wanted new and perfect Barbie’s in the beginning, but she realized that these Barbie’s are not everything and she can make them her own. She is not defined by her Barbies. Sandra Cisneros used symbolism and characterization to describe how the narrator had a hard time coming into her own identity and finding
Society tends to misjudge people base on their appearances instead of their personality. As it’s shown on Cyrano de Bergerac story everyone misjudges people. Cyrano was ashamed of the way he looked, especially with his enormous nose that made him stand out. People didn’t care if Cyrano got his feelings hurt they thought he was a cruel person. Its bad when people tends to misjudge people without even knowing them but they just judge them by their looks instead of their personality. People shouldn’t be ashamed of the way they look and it shouldn’t stop them from accomplishing their goals and express their feelings towards the people they like.
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
Nobody was better looking than anybody else,” (627). This quote shows that in Harrison Bergeron’s society, everyone is identical to everyone else. People are not allowed to be unique or different in any way, shape, or form. This is due to the immense pressure of society that forces people to conform. In this case, it is the Handicapper General, one of the most influential powers, that is oppressing the individuals to become similar as well as the common person who is going along with it. When the Handicapper General suppresses George, he is forcing him to conform to be “normal,” and when the majority of the population goes along with it, they are reinforcing the conformism. This idea is also reinforced in the poem, “Richard Cory.” When describing how society views the “perfect” protagonist, the writer explains “In fine, we thought he was everything / To make us wish that we were in his place, (Robinson Lines 11-12). This quote shows how society has forced Richard Cory to be this perfect image of a man. Richard Cory was not allowed to be individualistic due to society’s standards. A good man was supposed to be rich, a gentleman, and happy. These qualities of a good person pressed in on Cory and made him become something that he was not. In the end, Richard Cory’s downfall is
For starters the title, “Barbie Doll” holds a meaning. It symbolizes the ideal figure of a female body. Society creates this ideal that is embed into every century. It is never ending. It is intended that she must have the twig like arms and legs, the minuscule waist and nose,
Marge Piercy wrote the Barbie Doll poem in 1973, during the woman’s movement. The title of the poem Barbie Doll, symbolizes how females are supposed to appear into the society. In the poem Barbie Doll, the main character was a girl. She was described as a usual child when she was born. Meaning that she had normal features that any person could ever have. Piercy used “wee lipstick the color of cherry candy” as a smile to describe the child before she has hit puberty. After the character hit puberty, the classmates in her class began to tease her saying “you have a big nose and fat legs.” (Piercy pg. 1) Having a big nose and a fat leg is the opposite of what females are supposed to be presented as in the gender stereotype. In the society that the girl lives in, follows the gender stereotypes that presented females as a petite figure with a slender body. These expectations made the character go insane. She wanted to fit into the society so she “cut off her nose and legs and offered them up.” (Piercy pg. 1) Even though the girl was “healthy, tested intelligent…” (Piercy pg. 1) no one saw that in her, but her appearances. In the end of the poem the girl end up dying, a...
In Marge Piercy’s, “Barbie Doll,” we see the effect that society has on the expectations of women. A woman, like the girl described in ‘Barbie Doll’, should be perfect. She should know how to cook and clean, but most importantly be attractive according to the impossible stereotypes of womanly beauty. Many women in today’s society are compared to the unrealistic life and form of the doll. The doll, throughout many years, has transformed itself from a popular toy to a role model for actual women. The extremes to which women take this role model are implicated in this short, yet truthful poem.
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
The first impression you have when meeting someone is their appearance, which makes it easy to judge people based on how they
In the beginning of “Barbie Doll”, pleasurable and unpleasurable imagery is given so that the reader can see the extremes girls go through to be considered perfect.
Stone, Tanya Lee. The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us. New York: Penguin Group, 2010. Print.
In "Richard Cory ", the writer begins the poem by introducing Richard. He is a good-looking gentlemen who is admired by many women. The poem keeps describing Richard Cory as a good dressed and nice man, when he walks down town he "glitters" and of course everyone is happy to see him. Also, he was "richer than a king" everyone in town wanted to be like him and live his life.
In the poem “Barbie Doll”, two techniques that were used in stanza 3 are; a dark tone and a dramatic monologue. The dramatic monologue represents the idea of society telling the woman that she needs to exercise and diet and play coy etc., in order to have a body size the is “acceptable”. The dark tone represents the idea that the woman was not accepted by society due to her body image. Society pressured her to do things that would make her ‘thin’ in size, and looking like a Barbie doll. In the end she committed suicide because she was overwhelmed by all the pressures that society had placed on her.
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 Sandra Cisneros’ Barbie-Q, Cisneros describes two little girls in Chicago that fawn over Barbie dolls. Their families don’t have enough money to afford Barbie dolls from the store and have to resort to buying their Barbies from flea markets. The little girls even have to wait until Christmas to ask for new doll clothes and make their own from old socks. The girls finally got more dolls because the flea market was having a sale on melted Barbie dolls from the burnt down warehouse. These dolls had water damage, smelled like burnt plastic, and even had melted feet. Nonetheless, the girls love and are very appreciative of the dolls. Through Barbie-Q, Cisneros expresses that society expects women to be perfect and materialistic when in reality,