The speaker in "Barbie Doll" is a narrator telling us a story. There is no specific speaker and it could be left to anyone who the speaker is. I came to this conclusion because it is always speaking of someone specific but never engages with the storyteller exactly. It starts with "This Girlchild was born as usual" in line 1 and lines 7 and 12 is starts with "she" and uses "she" throughout the poem.
The situation of the poem is a girl who grew up playing with barbies. As she grew older barbies were no longer toys and instead were a means of physical beauty. She was teased for not looking like a barbie by classmates in school as she hit puberty. The situation turned into turmoil over her looks and ended up taking her own life trying to fix what others saw as imperfections.
The tone of the poem is matter-of-fact when it starts in line 1 with "this girlchild was born as usual". The tone stays the same even when it gets to line 5 and says, "Then in the magic of puberty". It really maintains the same tone throughout the whole poem. Even in the end when it takes it's most dramatic turn and says, "so she cut off her nose and her legs". It doesn't darken or anything just telling us a nonjudgmental story of a girl who took her life because she didn't possess the external beauty.
Women often have to change their appearance and who they are to become what society wants them to become to fit in.
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