Pathos

As a teenage girl, I found it easy to relate to Piercy's Barbie Doll. The author breaks the poem up into three distinct periods of time in the life of the young girl. First, Piercy allows the audience to get to know the young girl by describing her childhood during which she was given "wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy" (Piercy, 835). One can picture a very young girl playing dress up and simply being adorable, and the reader instantly feels a pleasant connection to the young girl. Thus, pathos is evoked when one reads that, during puberty, the young girl was "advised to play coy" because "everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs" (Piercy, 835-836). The adorable young girl that everyone loved just a few lines before is now being picked on. One can not help to feel sorry for her, as well as be angry at those who are tormenting her. However, the most instense pathos is elicited when the author tells of the young girl's suicide as a result of the bullying. How terribly sad it is that people finally saw the beauty in the young girl, the one thing the girl desired, when she was laying in her casket "with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on" (Piercy, 836).