Comparison/Contrast of a Poem and Short Story on a Common Theme
"Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy and "Hominids" by Jill McCorkle

The introduction introduces the common theme explored in the thesis.

• Briefly introduce the common theme each work illuminates. Identify a Significance, Importance, Relevance, or Value (SIRV) reason for comparing these two works. What one thing do both works have to say about the subject?
• Thesis: A thesis is a SIRV statement on both works about this common theme. End the introduction with a thesis statement that identifies both works by title and author and identifies the SIRV reason for comparing the two works.
• What not to do:
  • Do not write about how hard it is to understand literature.
  • Do not write about what it means to compare two works of literature.
  • Do not suggest one theme for one work and a different theme for the other work (find a commonality--a shared theme, even if expressed in opposing ways).
  • Do not talk to the reader.
  • Do not talk about choosing the works. The essay is not about the essay. It is about the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) of the works.

Self-esteem is affected by many different factors, including physical appearance. For women, beauty and self-esteem are often highly related and inseparable, particularly regarding whether men perceive them as desirable. Beauty is subjective and open to unrealistic and idealized standards set by the media, social groups, and cultural norms. Only one of four people consider themselves attractive (Fetto 10). Women can often find themselves struggling with cultural, partially male, concepts of feminine beauty. Worse, women are frequently reduced to nothing more than sexual objects, where their individuality is ignored, relationship is inconsequential, and they become nothing more than a means to satisfy male lust. Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" and Jill McCorkle's "Hominids" examine how the pressures from negative attitudes towards physical appearance wear down women's self-esteem, ultimately destroying them.

• Always present the works in the body in the same order as they appear in the thesis.
• Begin with a topic sentence that identifies the work by title and author and indicates what this work has to say about the theme common to both works. In this type of essay, the topic sentence will model a thesis statement.
• Use present tense in discussing the work.
• Explicate the work, identifying evidence within the work supporting the theme being explored. What unique perspective does this work offer on the common theme? Use short quotations integrated into the argument rather than long quotations followed by paraphrase and explanation.
• Conclude by reiterating what this work has to say about the theme under consideration

What NOT to do in the body of the essay

• Don't write about how hard it is to understand literature or how writers try to express ideas in literature.
• Don't focus on superficial similarities or differences: both poems rhyme; this poem is a sonnet, but the other one isn't; this work is a poem, and the other is a short story.
• Don't leave the works to generalize about images or ideas the works introduce.

  Wrong: James Wright describes a spider in his poem "The Journey." Many people are afraid of spiders, but people can also learn from them like how spiders are able to walk across their web without getting trapped even though dust or insects get trapped (Wright, lines 14-23).

  Right: The spider in James Wright's "The Journey" becomes a metaphor for the human soul unfettered by life's troubles. Even though the spider web "Reeled heavily and crazily with the dust / Whole mounds and cemeteries of it" (Wright, lines 15-16), the spider is "Free of the dust" (22), not burdened by it, able to[step] / Away in her own good time" (24-25). And so, the speaker suggests, people, too, should "step lightly" (33), "let the wind / Blow its dust" (31-32) all over them, and live their lives despite their "ruins" (34) or their "dead" (35).

The girl in "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy demonstrates how the failure to live up to the pressure to conform to society's views of female beauty cannot only destroy a woman's self-esteem but lead to self-destruction. The "girlchild" (Piercy, line 1) in the poem represents all women. Women are "socialized" to conform to traditional expectations (Semansky), given "dolls" (Piercy 2), "stoves and irons" (Piercy 3), "lipsticks" (Piercy 4), and other items that establish the limits of feminine interests (Semansky). Girls that are not beautiful but have "tested intelligent / possessed strong arms and back, / [and] abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity" (Piercy 9) have to apologize for possessing the wrongs traits, traits that would be exalted in a male. Society, represented by the other people in the poem, focuses on the superficial qualities of women as demonstrated in the girl in the poem being reduced to "a fat nose and thick legs" (Piercy 11). Society blames women for their failure to conform to social norms, advising them to "play coy" (Piercy 12) to attract men and "come on hearty" (Piercy 13) in the pursuit of men, opposing advice that implies it is the woman's fault that she is not accepted for who she is. Eventually women can be overwhelmed and like the young woman in "Barbie Doll" their "good [natures wear] out" (Piercy 15). The irony is that in death, this young woman finally achieves acceptance as she is transformed into a doll with a "turned-up putty nose" (Piercy 21), provocatively dressed in a "pink and white nightie" (Piercy 22). The poem ends with a sarcastic warning to all women (Piercy 24-25).

• Begin with a transitional sentence that identifies the work by title and author and indicates what this work has to say about the theme common to both works and indicates the relation between what this work says and what the previous work says.
Examples:
• Similarity: "Like work A by Author A, work B by Author B also . . . "
• Similarity with expansion: "Not only can (whatever work A revealed about the theme), but work B by Author B shows (whatever extension of this idea work B offers)"
• Contrast: While work A by Author A suggests, work B by Author B reveals (a different perspective)"
• Explicate the second work, identifying evidence within the work supporting the theme being explored. Again, use brief quotations woven into an argument rather than long quotations followed by paraphrase and explanation.
• Conclude by examining the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) this work explores about the theme under consideration

When explicating longer works, the writer may want to divide the explication into several paragraphs.

While "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy deals with the consequences of failing to live up to social pressure to conform to traditional ideas of beauty, Jill McCorkle's "Hominids" illustrates the misogynist view of the female form held by men that both sexualizes and dismisses women and the struggles of women to cope with being objectified. In "Hominids" the narrator attacks the chauvinistic view of beauty held by her 'good-old-boy' husband and his high school friends by joking about "Peckers" (McCorkle 77), a female version of Hooters, in order to chastise her husband, who has just finished telling a story about a detour he took to Café Risqué, a strip club.

While the men leer over the naked breasts of the women of Café Risqué, they caricature the women as the "fat one" (McCorkle 85) or the "skinny Asian one" (McCorkle 80). The women's bodies become objects of male desire, their breasts compared "like you might a pumpkin" (McCorkle 79) by the men in "Hominids," who "should know better" (McCorkle 79). The narrator's husband even dismisses her by saying "Let it drop" (McCorkle 88), arguing "this is a party, not some New Age awareness group" (McCorkle 88), expressing his discomfort with her reaction while failing to recognize or acknowledge her discomfort.

Dennis, one of the husband's friends, is obsessed with materialism, wanting everyone to believe that he "simply sprang forth in a business suit with a fat wallet" (McCorkle 80). To him women are merely a status symbol like the "Rolex on his wrist, and the BMW" (McCorkle 80) he has parked outside. Dennis has so completely objectified women that he even neglects his own mother, who raised him by herself working "forty years as a receptionist," visiting her "only at Christmas if then" (McCorkle 80). Dennis is incapable of "[giving] it a rest" (McCorkle 83). He completely dismisses women by asking, "What's the big deal" (McCorkle 83) when joking about breasts despite the fact that his "mother had a double mastectomy" (McCorkle 83). Dennis demonstrates nothing but contempt for women, showing no empathy or understanding of the "psychological reactions [that] include anxiety, depression, fear of death, helplessness, isolation, loss of self-esteem, . . . and feelings of mutilation" (Kriss and Kraemer 438) of women, like his mother, who have had mastectomies.

The narrator and the other women in the story represent a tamed spirit of womanhood "tired" (McCorkle 86) and worn down by men. The hominid Lucy with small breasts, "thin and stretched" (McCorkle 82) represents the unadulterated woman free of the male idea of a sexualized woman. Lucy's death is a symbol for the corruption of female beauty. The narrator asks if Lucy gives up because she "grew so tired" (McCorkle 82) or if such a desire was only "the result of years of domestication" (McCorkle 80), suggesting that women, like animals, have been domesticated by men. However, the story suggests hope when the narrator's son, a "future man" (McCorkle 90), demonstrates "evolution in action" (McCorkle 90) by finding beauty in Lucy, a beauty that does not conform to cultural norms and is not conferred from men but comes from a respect for his mother and her feelings.

While restating the main ideas from the body of the essay will work as a conclusion, a much better approach is to come to some new awareness of the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) that these works reveal.

The women in "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy and "Hominids" by Jill McCorkle struggle with being treated as objects instead of being recognized and respected for who they are: beautiful and intelligent women. The "girlchild" in "Barbie Doll" fails to see her own virtues and depends on others to give her value which ultimately ends in her taking her own life. In "Hominids" women face chauvinistic stereotypes of female beauty that dismiss and objectify them. However, unlike the "girlchild" in "Barbie Doll," the narrator in "Hominids" resists the attitudes that are being forced on her. She finds some hope for the future while reflecting on humanity's past and stands up for herself despite society's unwillingness to change. Nevertheless, she, too, is worn down by the constant barrage of male abuse and, like Lucy, "would like nothing better than to stretch out and close [her] eyes, disappear, if only briefly" (McCorkle 86), "a part of [her] still thinking about bare breasts and day-old coffee, empty bank accounts and biopsies, neglected children and scar tissue" (McCorkle 90) as she recognizes that, despite the better living conditions of her own life, she shares the degradation of the women at Café Risqué.

There are a number of different style manuals that are used in academics to format sources. These are standardized to fit the needs of particular academic fields of study. In English classes (as well as some other classes), teachers use the Modern Language Association (MLA) stylebook. However, individual instructors have the right to require their own rules to follow within MLA style. The course textbooks will include a section on MLA style. Teachers may include additional instructions within the course, via handouts, or as part of the assignment instructions.

Fetto, John. "Image is Everything." American Demographics, vol. 25, no.2, 2003, pp. 10-11. Academic Search Complete. n/a. Accessed 21 Aug. 2013.

Kriss, Regina, T. and Helena C. Kraemer. "Efficacy of Group Therapy for Problems with Postmastectomy Self-Perception, Body Image, and Sexuality." Journal of Sex Research, vol. 22, no. 4, 1986, pp. 438-451. MasterFILE Premier. n/a. 21 Aug. 2013.

McCorkle, Jill. "Hominids." Creatures of Habit. Algonquin Books, 2009, pp. 77-90.

Piercy, Marge. "Barbie Doll." The River Reader. 2nd ed. Edited by Natalie Danner. Pearson, 2010, pp. 171.

Semansky, Chris. "Overview of 'Barbie Doll'." Poetry for Students. Edited by Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 9. Gale Group, 2000. Literature Resource Center. n/a. Accessed 22 Aug. 2013.