Recognizing Poetic Parallels

Recognizing Poetic Parallels
In today’s world, people are judged from head to toe. Whether it’s someone’s hair, their make-up, their nails, or the clothes that they wear, people will notice and there are a lot of people who will make rude comments and be mean about it. Marge Piercy explains in her poem, Barbie Doll, what many girls go through in the United States because of this judgmental society that we live in. She also explains it in her poem, A Work of Artifice.
In the poem, Barbie Doll, Marge Piercy explains how sometimes what people say and think about us makes us do irrational things.   The poem talks about a girl who is just like any other girl, with the exception that she is not so pretty. Piercy describes the girl in lines 7-11: “7She was healthy, tested intelligent, 8possessed strong arms and back, 9abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.   10She went to and fro apologizing. 11Everyone say a fat nose on thick legs”. Lines 7-11 show that even though she is a healthy, smart, strong girl, all that people care is that she is overweight and that her nose is not thin. People made her watch what she ate and exercise as Piercy mentions on line 14, “13exhorted to come on hearty, 14exercise, diet, smile and wheedle”. The fact that people were trying to change who she is to make her something that she is not, killed her inner nature. “15Her good nature wore out 16like a fan belt” is the way that Marge Piercy described how this girl’s personality and nature fell to the ground as people kept trying to change who she really was in order to make her more “acceptable” in society. After the girl was tired of being manipulated, humiliated, and hurt she decided to do something irrational. Marge Piercy explains this in lines 17 and 18, “17So she cut off her nose and her legs 18and offered them up.” By these lines we can imply that the hate, the humiliations, the judging, the manipulation, and the rudeness that this girl went through turned her to suicide. After all...