Blog post 5: Revised Intro and Outline

        Since 1959 10 million barbie dolls have been sold, 300,000 were sold in the first year. In Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" she uses symbolism throughout her poem. Apparent from the title, the main symbol Piercy uses in this poem is a barbie doll. As a symbol, the barbie doll is used mainly in the beginning but the idea of it is used heavily in the beginning and the end. Marge Piercy's use of the barbie doll is very effective because it takes a child hood toy that we all know of, and relates, and compares it to many issues girls struggle with in today's world.    

  

I.               In Marge Piercy's poem the symbol of a Barbie doll is used to the ideal beauty in today's world.

a.     “The girlchild was born as usual and presented dolls that did pee-pee”

b.     “In the casket displayed on satin she lay with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on”

II.             Although the Barbie doll is a symbol of what we think beauty is, Piercy also shows how the symbol has a negative effect.

a.     “You have a great big nose and fat legs”

b.     “She went to and fro apologizing”

      

III.           By the end of the poem Piercy gets to the point of the consequences of what the symbol of the Barbie doll has on our society.

a.     “So she cut off her nose and legs and offered them up.”

b.     “Consummation at last. To every women a happy ending.”

Blog post 4: Intro paragraph

          Since 1959 10 million barbie dolls have been sold, 300,000 were sold in the first year. In Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" she uses symbolism throughout her poem. Apparent from the title, the main symbol Piercy uses in this poem is a barbie doll. As a symbol, the barbie doll is used mainly in the beginning but the idea of it is used heavily in the beginning and the end. Marge Piercy's use of the barbie doll is very effective because it takes a child hood toy that we all know of, and relates, and compares it to many issues girls struggle with in today's world.    

I.          In "Barbie Doll" 

Past or Present

To other people this story might seem completely unreasonable and stupid that someone feels like they should have been born in a different time. For me i don't find it so difficult to see. I often think about what it would have been like to be alive in the 1950s. There are many reasons why I think being alive in the 50s would be interesting but one of them is because of the music. There were many great artists in the 50s but one of my favorite musicians was Johnny Cash, and I think it would be amazing to have seen him in person. Another reason why i would liked to have lived in the 50s is because my dream car is a 1952 Ford pickup. Most everything about the 50s is interesting to me.

While I can sit and think about what it would be like I never wish i wasn't born because of it. And that's where I have trouble understanding Miniver Cheevy's desire to live in the past. Although Miniver is unhappy about his current situation he doesn't ever do anything about it. But what I think Robinson is trying to say is that if you always settle for something that you don't like the way things are going and you don't do anything about it than you're going to be unhappy and depressed for the rest of your life.

Barbie Doll

In Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll" she talks about an issue that is very real today, and that is the pressure  for girls to look a curtain way. Piercy does this by using irony throughout the poem. One place where Piercy uses irony is "Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs."(Piercy line 5-6) This is ironic because the sentence starts of with "magic" which is normally used in fairy tales to make every thing seem happy. But when one of her classmates said "You have a great big nose and fat legs," the word "magic" is flipped upside down. Another place where Piercy uses irony is when the girlchild had cut off her legs and nose and was laying in her casket and Piercy writes "Consummation at last. To every woman a happy ending."(24-25) This is very ironic because this quote is saying that for every woman in the world the most important thing is to be seen as pretty. I think that irony is useful in this poem because it allows Piercy to put a negative underlying tone on the poem even though there are no specific negative words are sections.

Harrison Bergeron

Hi My name is Toby. Over the summer I read many texts but one that stood out to me the most was a story called "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut. I like this story because Vonnegut is subtly making fun of what society has become. He does this by using an extreme example in which everyone is equal in every way shape or form. One moment that made me stop and think about was right after George and Hazel's kid Harrison was killed on live television and because Hazel was so simple minded, when George came back from the kitchen and asked what happened Hazel said "I forget...Something real sad on television." Because they made everyone exactly equal a mother couldn't remember her own sons death, and a father who wouldn't know. Although this story is very extreme there are aspects of today that are similar.