Irony

Irony is a powerful tool. In "Barbie Doll," by Marge Piercy, Piercy uses irony to convey her theme of what's wrong with people's conventional ideas of femininity and beauty. Direct narration is bland when trying to get across a lesson; using irony, authors can mess with our heads and our flow of reading, by shattering our expectations to create an exciting and almost confusing tone that makes the story more lively and emotional. Piercy uses verbal irony, where her words seem to contradict themselves yet hide a deeper meaning.After the "magic of beauty," the young girl is made fun of for her physical appearance, so much that she kills herself. Magic is a very strange and ironic word to describe the beginning of this girl's downward spiral to suicide. Towards the end I believe she uses dramatic irony as well. "Doesn't she look pretty? Everyone said" at her funeral; I beleive this is dramatic irony because she's dead, and only we and the sub-characters see her "beauty," even though she's plastered with make-up and missing her legs. Piercy is also using irony as a tool to satirize womens' unrealistic standard of beauty. As harsh as the poem is, I can't help but see truth in it.