Work Of Artifice Analysis

Throughout literature, authors portray images of women. One of the reoccurring images is physical appearance. Society forces women to conform to their perfect ideal: beautiful, domesticated, weak, and inferior to man. This portrayal is prevalent throughout many works of literature, including pieces such as “A Work of Artifice,” “Barbie G,” and “Pathedy of Manners.” Their portrayal of women demonstrates this unfair standard of women and the over exaggerated value placed upon physical appearance. By using the physical appearance of women, the authors comment on this unfair characterization and stereotype of women. In the “Work of Artifice,” the symbol of a bonsai tree represents the image of women. The gardener represents society and the limitations

Society holds to the idea that, “It is your nature to be small and cozy, domestic and weak; how lucky little tree, to have a pot to grow in” (Piercy 12). Society holds that women are weaker and meant to do “woman work” in the household, performing the stereotypical duties of a traditional woman, such as cooking, cleaning, and raising children. The image of portraying the physical appearance of women as “small and cozy, domestic and weak” not only shows the unfair standard that women have been burdened with, but also shows that women should be grateful that there is a “pot for them to grow in” (Piercy 16). Society inhibits women from becoming their own person, instead forcing them to conform to the box that they have decided they must fit in to. If a woman does not match this, she must be cut down to fit it. “With living creatures one must begin very early to dwarf their growth: the bound feet, the crippled brain, the hair in curlers, the hands you love to touch” (Piercy 17). It is apparent that society must start shaping women at any early age in order to make her fit

The dolls that the girls have wear a “sophisticated A-line coatdress” (Cisneros 4) and a “black glitter strapless gown with a puffy skirt at the bottom” (Cisneros 6). The girls adore these outfits, but are not what society would think of when picturing beauty. They are flawed; “the glitter wears off where her titties stick out” (Cisneros 9). They have “a dress invented from an old sock when [they] cut holes here and here and here, the cuff rolled over for the glamorous, fancy-free, off-the-shoulder look” (Cisneros 11). The young girls do not view beauty in the same way that society would view it; the girls do not see the flaws, where the world would be disgusted by them. This image that the author conveys also translates to how women should be viewed in the real world. Just as the flawed outfits are not less beautiful to the girls because of them, a woman that does align with the typical image of beauty which society holds is not any less beautiful. The girls are walking in the streets on day, and find new outfits “lying on the street next to some tool bits, and platform shoes with the heels all squashed, and a fluorescent green wicker wastebasket, and aluminum foil, and hubcaps, and a pink shag rug, and windshield wiper blades, and dusty mason jars, and a coffee can full of rusty nails” (Cisneros 20). The girls are filled with joy. The girls are overjoyed by