In the casket displayed on satin she laywith the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,a turned-up putty nose,dressed in a pink and white nightie.Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.Consummation at last.To every woman a happy ending.

‘Barbie Doll’ - Marge Piercy

In the casket displayed on satin she laywith the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,a turned-up putty nose,dressed in a pink and white nightie.Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.Consummation at last.To every woman a happy ending.

In the casket displayed on satin she laywith the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,a turned-up putty nose,dressed in a pink and white nightie.Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.Consummation at last.To every woman a happy ending.

Piercy makes purposeful word choices in her final stanza to construct the image of the girl in a coffin as resembling a Barbie Doll in a box.

The description of her ‘painted on’ cosmetics constructs a manufactured image in the readers imagination.

This combines with the her ‘turned-up putty nose’ to create a sculpted, plastic type image.

Finally, the use of the word ‘display’ is suggestive of a shop window or a display case; it objectifies the poetic subject and makes her sound like a ‘thing’ rather than a person.

The imagery creates irony. She died in the pursuit of an impossible beauty ideal, and in death, she achieved it.

A Daughter of EveChristina Rossetti (1830–1894) A fool I was to sleep at noon, And wake when night is chillyBeneath the comfortless cold moon;A fool to pluck my rose too soon, A fool to snap my lily. My garden-plot I have not kept; Faded and all-forsaken,I weep as I have never wept:Oh it was summer when I slept, It's winter now I waken. Talk what you please of future spring And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,No more to laugh, no more to sing, I sit alone with sorrow.

A Daughter of Eve - Christina Rossetti A fool I was to sleep at noon, And wake when night is chillyBeneath the comfortless cold moon;A fool to pluck my rose too soon, A fool to snap my lily. My garden-plot I have not kept; Faded and all-forsaken,I weep as I have never wept:Oh it was summer when I slept, It's winter now I waken. Talk what you please of future spring And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,No more to laugh, no more to sing, I sit alone with sorrow.

The imagery of the ‘garden-plot’ is ambiguous: there are many possible interpretations. Read the poem

again slowly. What do you think the garden symbolises?

Flowers often symbolise a woman’s sexual organs. Accordingly, the speaker’s reference to plucking her rose and snapping her lily could a metaphor for her lost virginity. These days, you might be familiar with the phrased ‘she was deflowered.’ With that connotation in mind, the garden-plot that the speaker has ‘not kept’ could be seen as her ‘virtue’ or her sexual reputation. Virginity and a virtuous reputation were cherished and considered to be beautiful in Victorian society. The beautiful garden at the top of the page represents what the speaker once was: chaste and therefore beautiful. The fact that the speaker has neglected her reputation is evident in the faded and forsaken garden she is left with. Just like the trees and the bushes, she has been stripped of the possibility of a bright future. The image of the cold and lonely garden is a representation of her cold and lonely future.

Here is one interpretation: