A Work of Artifice and You Should Have Been a Boy

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A Work of Artifice and You Should Have Been a Boy

The word potential can be defined as the sum of abilities and capabilities that are possessed by, and specific to an individual being. In regards to humans we could say that it is all that a person can be and accomplish if encouraged and allowed the freedom to do so. Fulfillment of potential is curtailed in both the females in “A Work of Artifice,” by Marge Piercy and the female in “You Should Have Been a Boy,” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton; however, the manner and degree of such curtailing is quite different.

In “A Work of Artifice” the growth and fulfillment of females is stunted physically, mentally, and sexually. The first evidence of this curtailment of potential we see is when the author says that the bonsai tree, which symbolically represents females, “could’ve grown to be eighty feet tall…but a gardener carefully pruned it.” Males, which are symbolically represented by the gardener, whittle away anything they find undesirable, thus curtailing the female’s growth and fulfillment. Example of the curtailing of the physical growth is “bound feet” by which females are unable to move around as they wish, limiting them to precisely where the males want them to be. In the words “croon[ed]” day after day by the gardener “it is your nature to be small and cozy, domestic and weak,” we see how males use these words to shape the mind of females, and they tell the females repeatedly also that they are so lucky to have men to tend to them as to inflict guilt as a safety net just in case the shaping was unsuccessful. All this careful attention works together to curtail females mentally. Lastly, the words “the hands you love to touch” imply that females...

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...hese works signify the male dominance in society, and how male uses different venues and approaches to protect his dominant status, whether it is by conscious or unconscious acts. Also both works show how female acceptance of this hierarchy gives males the power and approval to continue to rule the roost, whether such acceptance comes through willing obedience or defeat. The females portrayed in “A Work of Artifice” and “You Should Have Been a Boy” developed deep and lonely voids inside their hearts because they had been conformed to the male’s wishes. They learned to ignore the pain created by the turning away from their own desires and aspirations and directed their lives on the path of living to please others. This empty existence denied what was rightfully theirs—a life full of happiness and satisfaction that occurs through the freedom of expression of self.

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