"She cut off her nose and her legs/ and offered them up."-- Barbie Doll, Marge Piercy
I found this poem to be rather disturbing. It is about a robust girl who is teased into getting plastic surgery to look like the dolls she plays with. The hyperbole that she actually cut off her nose and legs and offered them up like a ritual sacrifice is used to create shock in the reader. The phrase "To every woman a happy ending" at the end of the poem conveys irony. It begs the reader to ask if this woman truly is happy with her new body. I thought it to be a little too morbid when the author calls the surgery table a casket, but I feel it is an appropriate metaphor. The woman is killing her old life and trying to begin a new one by changing the look of her body. It also satirizes the emphasis we as a society place on the value of physical beauty.
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