("Barbie Doll", Piercy)
"Her good nature wore out like a fan belt."
This entire poem is centered on the repulsing image of women society holds: perfect, plastic, doll-like creatures. The speaker over exaggerates the procedures and teasing in order to display the injustice, but the affects are quite realistic. Judgement and lack of self-worth lead to being tired and even conformity. This ideal is best represented with the use of the simile comparing the girl to a fan belt. A fan belt, for those who don't know, is a circular strip of material used between two gears; it is vital to maintain the machine and is worn down to the point of breaking after sometime. Although the speaker dramatizes the causes, the effect upon the girl are true. Like the fan belt, she is constantly tested and worn down as she battles the crude judgement placed upon her. At the end, she breaks and "dies" and conforms to society. Her reliable fan belt is gone, replaced with a fickle and superficial fashion belt.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment