A Useless Beauty By Guy De Maupassant

Today everyone lives in a world where there is independence and freedom. No one likes to be told what to do, how to act, or even be forced to depend on others. Everyone expects to have some type of control and power when it comes to their lives, and especially their bodies. Even though this can relate to both genders, women are seen as the ones who happen to be deprived of how much control and power they have, when it comes to making decisions relating to their lives and bodies. They are seen as the weakest gender and therefore, are manipulated by the society and even their husbands into doing things that they don't want to do. Guy de Maupassant the author of "A Useless Beauty" explains how women are deprived of the privilege of making their
This can be seen when de Maupassant says "she got into her carriage without looking at him..." "You are going for a drive?" "You see I am" "May I come with you?" "The carriage belongs to you" (86). Notice that here the countess is not fully in control of her decisions, even though her husband asked her for permission whether or not he may tag along for the drive. No matter what her response will be, it still won't go her way, simply because, the carriage belongs to her husband. The only thing that the countess is controlling, is her level of anger and she expresses it by not glancing at her husband when entering the carriage. If she had control over her decisions, she would not permit her husband to join her for the drive. In relation, Kay S. Hymowitz the author of "Scenes From the Exhibitionists" who supports de Maupassant, talks about a similar aspect and its seen when she says "Britney Spears jauntily revealed her waxed nether-regions to waiting photographers as she exited her limo...to show that you are liberated, take it off. Liberty means responsibility...to disrobe" (59). Here we can see that Britney is the one who is controlling the situation and her body because, she was aware of the fact that there will be camera man outside. Waiting for an opportunity to snap some kind of an embarrassing photo and shake the world of
This is seen when the countess says "I gave myself to him, without love and without pleasure, only for the sake of betraying you, and he also made me a mother" (90). Through the tone that is being used we can right away tell that countess deliberately made herself available to another men because, she had that kind of power and ability. She made it clear that it wasn't from her need of love, nor pleasure, but to purely show that she was the one who had the power to make such a decision. She was fully aware that what she was doing was unacceptable, and would definitely cause some kind of repercussions at the end, but it didn't matter. She just wanted to show that she was the one behind the helm and things were going her way. She even accepted the fact that, another men has made her a mother with pure enjoyment because, it proved that all of this was within her control. In connection, Dorothy Wardell the author of "Margaret Sanger: Birth Control's Successful Revolutionary" also supports de Maupassant and talks about almost similar dispute stating that women should have the power to control what happens to their bodies. This can be seen when Wardell writes, "another baby will finish me, I suppose...any more campers young woman and there'll be no need to send for me" "but...what can I do to prevent it?" (738). We see here that women have the ability to reproduce as