Barbie Doll

"What Are Big Girls Made Of?" by Marge Piercy (1996)

“What Are Big Girls Made Of?” visits many of the same themes and motifs of the body, of sexuality, and of second-wave feminism:

She

sits at the table closing her eyes to food

hungry, always hungry:

a woman made of pain (Lines 52-55).

This pain and tortured obsession with dieting, smallness, and societal expectations for women’s appearances mirrors that of “Barbie Doll.”

"The friend" by Marge Piercy (1968)

A useful accompaniment to “Barbie Doll,” “The friend” addresses the ties between love, sex, and the things others ask of one’s body. “he said, burn your body. / it is not clean and it smells like sex” (Lines 7-8). The image of removing limbs is seen as well: “he said, cut off your hands. / they are always poking at things” (Lines 2-3). These lines mirror the way the main character cuts off her nose and legs in “Barbie Doll.”

"Always Unsuitable" by Marge Piercy (1999)

“I look a stuffed turkey in a suit” (Line 4). Piercy follows through on themes of the body and sexuality in “Always Unsuitable,” using the graphic, stark imagery typical to her poetry and seen in “Barbie Doll.