An Ironic Situation

In Marge Piercy’s poem, “Barbie Doll,” and in Nadine Gordimer, “Once Upon a Time,” irony is used to mess with the reader’s expectations and emotions. In “Barbie Doll,” Piercy portrays to the reader how beautiful and powerful “Barbie” is. But then Piercy writes that “Barbie” has an ugly nose and fat legs. Irrationally, she decided to cut off her nose and legs which killed her. While she was lying in her coffin, everyone who called her ugly when she was alive called her beautiful with her fake nose and fake legs. This story is ironic because she tried so hard to fit in with others and tried so hard to be beautiful, but she was only called beautiful out of pity and artificial limbs.

In Gordimer’s story, “Once Upon a Time,” a town was terrified of robberers and thieves breaking into their house, so they decieded to add barbed wire and alarms to prevent break-ins. Unfortunately, this much protection kept intruders out but kept the innocents in. This story is ironic because as the townspeople tried to keep intruders out, they prevented people from leaving which resulted in the death of a young child who wanted to try and climb the fence but got caught in barbed wire and died.

In Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” and in Gordimer’s “Once Upon a Time,” situational irony is used to give the characters a problem, and their solution causes the people they care about to die. Piercy and Gordimer use irony instead of direct narration give the reader and emotional kick and dramatic change in expectations to make the story stand out in the readers’ mind.