Paper Topic

For my paper, I'm going to be writing on Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll." I've written a little about this poem before, and I'm going to use that preliminary piece as a springboard to create my paper. I'll mainly be analyzing the theme of the poem as a whole, as well as the specific ideas generated by each stanza and line. I'll also write about how the diction and individual concepts mentioned in the poem work together to inspire irony and empathy in the reader.

Re: Baby Villon

Philip Levine, Baby Villon

 

Philip Levine's poem “Baby Villon” is the painful story of a man whose life has been torn apart and tainted by the strife of warring countries or factions. “The war in North Africa” caused the deaths or disappearances of his father and brother, in the midst of the presumed chaos of “what came after” the fighting, and this man is still constantly haunted by the war and its after-effects on his world and his own identity. War is all-pervasive, and even after it is over, it continues to sully his perspective on the present, his memory of the past, and any hope he might have had for a brighter future.

Even if it is tentative, wars are usually followed by some kind of peace or calm after the storm. Regardless of his home's current political situation, though, it's clear that this man cannot forget about the war and the blood in his “flat brown eyes.” Even after the poem has finished its direct references to the war, the man continues to reminisce about the broken windows of a bakery – probably his family's – and the “warm smell of rye” tainted with razor-sharp glass dust that made his mouth bleed. The man in this poem has been drained of passion and anger, but he continues to focus on aspects of his life that remind him of the war.

It is somewhat strange for someone who suffered because of the war to perpetually talk of violence and suffering, but this also conveys how much the fighting and pain was ingrained into his mind and soul. He even considers hair to be a sort of soldier, protecting “the head of the fighter.” It is with strange melancholy and resignation that he considers the narrator's “fair” and fragile appearance, contrasted with the “black kinks”, head, and hair of the fighter mentioned in the section just before. This contrast – between the “fair” and “smooth” narrator and the man who is, from the beginning of the poem, enough of a roughened outcast that he is robbed “everywhere and at all times” – is quite sharp indeed.

This man is still troubled by the fact that he has changed so much, torn away from a youth where he was just as fair and smooth as the narrator, and when the comforting smell of rye bread was not yet tainted with memories of blood and broken glass. He says that he is constantly being robbed, and this is true in ways both literal and symbolic: the war robbed his youth and innocence from him long ago, a crime which has stolen the life and passion from his eyes and reduced him to a somber, lifeless war veteran.

Levine's poem, so orderly and neat in form and organization, hides a broken character whose life has been altered forever by the chaos of war and its aftermath. The idea of people hiding their damage and grief beneath the surface is truly sad to think about, and one can only hope that not all who suffer through war come out of the experience with this much pain in their hearts.

Works Cited:

Levine, Philip. Stranger to Nothing: Selected Poems. Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2006. Print.

Re: Sex Without Love

Sharon Olds, Sex Without Love

"...gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice..."

Sharon Olds's poem speaks on casual sex, or as the title states, "sex without love", a topic very significant in today's age of clubs, prostitution, and more widespread and open sexual activity than most other eras have experienced. The form of the poem reflects the act of sex itself, beginning with long, elegant, gently flowing lines like "beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice". It then moves on to bolder and fiercer lines, with phrases like "fingers hooked inside each other's bodies," and "faces red as steak". Finally, the poem nears a climax of sorts, a hitched-breath repetition of "come to the" like the strained gasps and cries of frantic lovers. Only after this does the poem seem to calm down enough to really wonder about the nature of sex, love, and those who have sex both with and without love.

As a former cross-country runner, I recognize the relationship the speaker describes between the runner and her or his environment, "alone with the road surface, the cold, the wind, the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardiovascular health". These may be "just factors", simple concrete facts about the world around them, but they do in fact build up to a total experience. After all, aren't all of the experiences we go through a compilation of tiny details we note about our environment? In this case the lovers may lack the emotional bond of love, but at least the experience can create a feeling and an emotional response in them, and that feeling may be just what these people are looking for.


Works Cited:

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011. Print.

“Six Sensual Tips For Sensational Sex.” The100%You.com. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.

Re: Barbie Doll

Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll

As a sort of preface, I just want to say that I'd really rather not delve into gender politics in this little essay, and that while I recognize that men and boys are often forced to live up to certain "male" standards as well, I'll be focusing on "female" standards here.

As a young woman, I can easily attest to the veritable bombardment of body-image related propaganda and marketing schemes on women. We are almost always being exposed to some magazine, advertisement, incriminating or judgmental attitude from another person, or some other form of influence on women and girls, urging us to be thinner, prettier, more delicate, more subdued, more gentle, more graceful, more reliant, and to constantly put more effort towards reaching this bizarre, unattainable status of perfection. Now, I must say that for those with a good amount of self-respect and internal strength - speaking for myself as an example - very little of this social expectation actually makes an imprint on my self-esteem and the way I behave. However, the fact remains that there is an enormous amount of effort and social construction put into funneling girls' behavior into fitting a certain mold. Furthermore, for girls with less self-esteem and courage to be themselves even if that means going against society's idea of what a woman should be like, this influence can be incredibly harmful, and in the case of the "girlchild" in Marge Piercy's poem and many other girls in real life, deadly.

Barbie Doll is filled with a great number of "delicate" words and phrases, a few being "magic", "wee," "cherry candy," "putty," and "pink and white nightie," the last of which becoming doubly so by being associated with the traditional colors of femininity and purity, pink and white. In addition, the phrase "pee-pee" is a ridiculously childlike euphemisms for a natural bodily function, hinting at the idea that young girls are expected to disguise and dance around the gross or undesirable parts of their own bodies, even far before they are introduced to ideas like fashion and dieting. This atmosphere of girlish innocence, a world of pink and gentle laughter, sweetness and magic, becomes expected for a girl's childhood; I certainly remember all of my friends' little sisters rooms being explosions of pink, lavender, and white. These are all soft, quiet colors that don't make too loud or forceful of an impression, but simply remain in the background and complement the gentle mood.

In contrast with this first pattern, the sections of the poem that deal with the girlchild's "fat nose" and "thick legs" are harsher and more detached, influencing the audience to shy away and dislike these parts of the girl. Even the descriptions of her that would normally be considered compliments are either more clinical or slightly off-putting in diction, such as the phrases "tested intelligent," and "manual dexterity". Inserting this tone into this section of the poem reflects the lower, more chauvinist and objectifying parts of society's wish for women to simply be seen and not heard, and to be beautiful and sexy to look at and touch - nothing more, nothing less. To fit into the mold of the "ideal woman", it is necessary to remove and trim parts of yourself, both physically and mentally - a horrifying idea to imagine, but one that the girlchild eventually goes along with when she "[cuts] off her nose and her legs and [offers] them up." After she has done so, "everyone" finally thinks of her as pretty, instead of just "[seeing] a fat nose on thick legs". However, she has paid the ultimate price for her beauty, something that could never be worth it in any kind of reasoning. When thinking about how societal expectations affect people, it's incredibly important to think about people like the girlchild, who will mutilate themselves and give everything up just to feel like they "belong."


Works Cited:

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011. Print.

Re: Welcome to Hiroshima

Mary Jo Salter, Welcome to Hiroshima

Unlike many pieces of writing centered around the city of Hiroshima in Japan, Mary Jo Salter's poem “Welcome to Hiroshima” speaks more on the Hiroshima of today rather than the day of the bombing. Obviously, the city is still very much haunted by the memory of the atomic bomb, but not in the way one might expect from seeing other countries' memorials to tragic events. The Hiroshima of Salter's poem is a strange mix of subdued monuments, commercialized hype, and an underlying sense of creeping, lingering resentment.

It is a commonly known characteristic of the Japanese, as well as citizens of other Asian countries, to downplay or cover up signs of weakness. For example, during the tsunami crisis a year or two ago, the Japanese seemed to be doing fine struggling through the disaster on their own, without accepting much or any help from foreign countries. This strategy makes sense, as it is especially unwise to show vulnerability in a part of the world where hard work and success are prized and where opportunistic leaders make use of all chances to get ahead. Thus, the “plastic dioramas” and “billboard brought to you...by Toshiba Electric” constitute much of the current-day Hiroshima's monuments to the bomb. Turning the event into a sort of local attraction that symbolizes the city, while still recognizing the horror and tragedy involved with it, allows Japan to effectively shunt the bombing into the past and show that the country is still just as technologically advanced and powerful as it has always striven for.

However, there is still a dark undertone to Hiroshima, hidden beneath the electric billboards and sunny coffee shops, and one that Salter exploses some of through this poem. It actually plays into the theme of the bomb very nicely; after the initial explosion and damage, there is a deceptively quiet calm that in reality is just as dangerous. The Ohta River is no longer coated in “blood and scum,” but the real danger of an atomic bomb lies in the invisible, almost undetectable radiation that still pervades the area. Such a danger can easily go unnoticed in “the water...they pour...for your morning cup of tea.” Moreover, if we continue with the idea of the nature of the bomb's damage reflective society's attitudes regarding the atomic bombings, this signifies a hidden, but still present, dislike and resentment on the part of the Japanese towards the perpetrators of the bombings. In addition, like the radiation that lingers after a nuclear bomb strike, this simmering anger could theoretically still end up poisoning relations between Japan and the United States.


Works Cited:

Salter, Mary J. Henry Purcell in Japan: Poems. New York: Knopf, 1985. Print.