Barbie Q By Sandra Cisneros Analysis

“Beauty. At the mention of this word, most girls are inclined to take a quick look into a compact mirror or run a few fingers through their hair, sizing themselves up with the nearest advertisement featuring a flawless bottle blonde” (Katie Atkinson). Women are willing to spend hours in the bathroom to be prepared for the day to look like a model when only traveling to the corner store is a real fascination. Most would not even walk out of the house without makeup on in fear they will be judged by their appearance. The short story, Barbie Q written by Sandra Cisneros, also shows the concept of girls trying to be “perfect.” It shows two girls trying to dress up their dolls to look high class. They spend so much money on clothing, shoes, and accessories, even though they come from a low income family, just to make their dolls look their best. The girls show the true meaning of someone being materialistic. When society focuses on the image of the next Barbie, women aren’t realizing how that’s changing themselves physically and emotionally just to live up to that expectation.
Makeup
One of the girls said to her sisters that her doll “is the one with mean eyes and a ponytail. Striped swimsuit, stilettos, sunglasses, and gold hoop earrings. Mine is the one with bubble hair. Red swimsuit, stilettos, pearl earrings, and a wire stand” (Cisneros par.1) This shows how the girls compete with what they have and who has more and that’s an example of what everyone in society does; they compare an ugly person with the most beautifulest person in the world, and that would bring the ugly person’s self-esteem down. When an individual’s self-confidence is lowered, they try to bring it back up by changing their inner and outer beauty, and the idea of being insecure leads to people following