Use of Parody, Foreshadowing and Figurative Language in Jane Yolen's Fat is Not a Fairy Tale

“Never Just Pictures” by Susan Bordo, is about how today’s society is influenced by the mass medias unrealistic ideas of how they are supposed to look. In this essay, the author breaks down the images being showcased by today’s culture concerning the aesthetics of the female body. Bordo also talks about how what was considered ‘beautiful’ or ‘perfect’ before has changed. Lately, the world has been on a craze to look like the air brushed model in the picture. Bordo explains how a lot of people are becoming more obsessed with their physique, and depending on looking thin to make them happy, instead of focusing on being happy and healthy.

Society today is extremely into being the “barbie doll” figure and having the perfect body. Models are known for being tall and very slim because to society slim is pretty. However, now having some curves to your body while still being slim is perfect. The image chosen for my visual rhetorical analysis paper as a whole represents society the way it is today.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman is a satirical story full of irony, in which the author creates a humorous and enjoyable read by having an abundance of character parodies. In the book The Princess Bride, the author satirizes fairytales and the characters through their appearance and actions. In the novel, the author portrays his characters as unfitting to the story. Goldman presents the story as a fairytale but it is the very opposite, as he constantly ridicules his characters. As a result, Goldman constructs a captivating read. Furthermore, Goldman is also obsessed with fairy tales and believes in satirizing them. He often creates characters which illustrate a fairytale but in actuality they

“Tough Guise explains the major changes within body images over the decades as well,” I stated trying to move into the next major topic I wanted to explain. My grandmother began to smile and replied that there could not have been a drastic change in how body image is seen. I corrected her with the example of G.I. Joe, the action figure usually for young boys. I began to explain that within the document three images where shown of how differently the action figure looks through the years. G.I. Joe’s of the past were seen as muscular army figures that could resemble a real life person. Although today’s G.I. Joe cannot resemble a real life figure because the proportions of the body are too large. These changes within the body type of a toy only expressive the major change within the body image of society. Young boys are being socialized to view bigger as better while women are viewing skinny are pretty. “These are drastic changes,” my grandmother states as she leads me to the old toy box; where we find a few action figures and Barbie’s to show everyone else.

In recent generations, typical looks or ideas have dominated fashion. People write about this topic through articles, newspapers, and papers. While models style and display the most recent styles, they also represent what women should look like. Not until very recently, people have realized that not all women look like models, unless they starved themselves or worse. In the poems, “Fat is Not a Fairy Tale” and “The Pink Car”, the authors’ convey their main message of the poem as the social aspect of the world and what they believe has the characteristics of the ideal person by using imagery and personification.

In the article “Distorted Images: Western Cultures are Exporting Their Dangerous Obsession with Thinness,” author Susan McClelland’s mainly focuses on how many young women idolize the women they see on T.V. The media is making many women feel as if they need to look a certain way to fit in with the world. Also the fact the western culture is spreading to other countries is a big issue because sicknesses, like bulimia, were not an issue before. Many women in other countries are starting to look at the women in the United States and want to be just like them. In this article, the author says that television, magazines, and media show

Issues of dieting, fat, and slenderness are hot topics in our culture. Bordo addresses them from a postmodern, but historical, feminist perspective. In this essay, she attempts to explain the appeal of slenderness in our society; and also, how the ideology of normal our society holds can be mentally and physically damaging for many people.

Jane has gotten used to cruelty and biased behavior towards her average looks, and develops a miserable self-esteem that believes the only possible way to describe her exterior is “plain”. This self-esteem prevents her from even beginning to recognize that anyone could appreciate her or find her beautiful in any manner. The society’s typical reactions and judgments shaped Jane’s self-esteem, and prevented her from receiving equal treatment as that of a beautiful woman.

We are constantly surrounded by images of the “perfect” woman. She is tall, thin and beautiful. She rarely looks older than 25, has a flawless body, and her hair and clothes are always perfect. She is not human. She is often shown in pieces – a stomach, a pair of legs, a beautifully made up eye or mouth. Our culture judges women, and women judge themselves, against this standard. It is forgotten that “beauty pornography”, as Wolf says, focuses on underweight models that are usually 15 to 20 years old. Flaws, wrinkles and other problems are airbrushed out of the picture.

In literature, satire is the use of irony, humour and exaggeration to critique and draw attention to societal shortcomings with the hope of bringing on improvement. The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, uses satire to criticize rigid fairy tale conventions. Posing as a “classic tale of true love and high adventure”, The Princess Bride portrays greatly exaggerated characters to mock the common fairy tale archetypes. Similarly, it utilizes irony to diverge from the ordinary storybook plotline. William Goldman's The Princess Bride is a satire that highlights the absurd portrayals of which fairy tale characters and events and the confined framework they are built on.

Barry uses exaggeration to add a sesnse of humor to the essay. He exaggerates the Barbie doll proportions giving her a height of seven feet and eighty-one pounds with fifty-three of those pounds being bosoms. He also exaggerates mens complacency with their apperance even “if their faces cause heart failure in cattle at a range of 300 yards, and when their faces sag and their noses bloat to the size of eggplants and their eyebrows grow together to form what appears to be a giant forehead-dwelling tropical caterpillar.” With these exaggerations he shows how women are willing to try and be like something that is very hard to achieve, even though they have already achieved their goals in the eyes of men and others. He shows how men are careless about their appearance, even though they may look horrendous; they care more about manly activities.

She had a healthy body, she was intelligent. She had an “abundant sexual drive and possessed strong arms and back,” (2, 8-9). She was herself blind to her own positive qualities as she was too busy trying to please others with her looks, “she went to and fro apologizing,” (2, 10). She apologized to everyone for her imperfections. The imagery of, “Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs” (2, 11), portrays the indifference society felt towards her. She wanted to be appreciated, but she was only seen her for her looks and not her inner self. She had learned from the time she was a child her imperfections made her not good enough or socially

The media have constructed attractiveness for a long time many sociocultural standards of beauty and. Especially women’s body images have been a primary concern because the value of women has been measured how they look like. How women have similar body traits with the modern female body images has been a significant and essential issue, historically. The sociocultural standards of beauty which have been created by the greed of the media have dire impacts on young females. The current beauty level of the female body image in the media is thinness. In fact, the preferred female body images have been changed through the media. Throughout history, sometimes skinny women’s body images were loved, and sometimes over weighted women’s body images were preferred. Whenever the media have dictated the ideal female

Fairytales, arguably some of the most historical forms of literature, have remained popular throughout the decades. Tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Frog King” and “The Swan Maiden,” were originally written between the mid-eighteenth century and mid-nineteenth century. Whether it is the fanciful love-story or the magical transformation which attracts and has kept attention throughout the decades, fairytales, specifically those in which either the protagonist or antagonist undergoes a physical change, teach an important lesson to readers. In this day and age, the media has put so much pressure on particularly young women to look a certain way; what seems to be missing is the idea that physical beauty does not necessarily parallel inner beauty. The theme of transformation in many fairytales serves to portray certain truths about

"Does this make me look fat?” Everyone at one time or another has experienced this iconic question in some way. Your best friend may have asked it, as she was getting ready for a date or maybe you muttered these words to yourself as you stared disapprovingly into a mirror; either way, this six-word question alludes to a standard of beauty that everyone strives to meet. A standard of beauty that is almost impossible to meet. The definition of beauty has evolved greatly over the years and it differs from culture to culture. Today, western culture idolizes the woman who is “thin, large breasted, and white (tanned, but not too brown)” (WVFV, pg. 220). This woman is one that millions of women strive to look like in