Alice Walker Beauty Analysis

“Beauty” by Tony Hoagland was written in 1998. In this poem, Hoagland expresses his feelings on how women care too much about physical appearances. Throughout his poem he tells the story through the eyes of a brother of a girl who learns to love herself for who she is. Hoagland’s poem stresses the importance that beauty goes deeper than the surface. Throughout his poem, Tony Hoagland uses many literary devices to perfect his poem. These devices include the message, tone, imagery, figures of speech, and personification.

Walker discovered her personal identity when she got into an accident that left a scar not only in her physical but into her life, she was insisted on a fight, and she even lost her self confidence and same as Cofer’s she faced discrimination and was disrespected. It was stressed in Walker’s, “after months, of torture at the school, my parents decide to send me back to our old community, to my old school.”(444) and also when she said that she beat a child at her old school who continually calls her ”one-eyed bitch” (445). On the other hand, Walker’s discovery differs from Staples’ because she was not feared nor misjudged. The epiphanies the three writers experienced, led them into their discovery of their personal knowledge and identity.

She shows herself as cowardly when she was reeling after the accident, “For six years I do not stare at anyone, because I do not raise my head.”(444), she says, portraying her disgust for herself. Walker utilizes the tone of her writing to manipulate the progression of her attitude shift. For instance, in the stages soon after the accident she uses a very morbid and pessimistic tone to describe the events that are transpiring at that juncture of her life. Stating, “I do not pray for sight. I pray for beauty.”(445), proving that even though this accident has occurred she has still remained very resistant to a change in attitude. She also couples detail to multiply the effect that these strategies have on the reader because when she describes these events, the details she uses reflects the tone, so it visibly transmits the idea of her attitude at that phase, which would be much harder to achieve without these rhetorical techniques used appropriately. The dialogue also plays into this idea as well as it also reflects the current mood of the stage. For example, when she was still very young she used very flattering words as dialogue to complement the tone where she thought beauty was everything and being most beautiful was most important. “That girl’s a little mess.”(442), “And got so much sense!”(442), people bombard

My paper literary artist Alice walker and visual artist Van Goth are best artist in the world, they have many similar things and different things, they are come from different century, different country, they have different family background, they have different work and life. People have different views on them. They both well know and both have a lot of fans in the world. Compared their difference and similar, life and work. We could links the two lives and their work together.

The desire to feel beautiful has never been more in demand, yet so impossible to achieve. In the book “The Bluest Eye”, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the story of two black families that live during the mid-1900’s. Even though slavery is a thing of the past, discrimination and racism are still a big issue at this time. Through the whole book, characters struggle to feel beautiful and battle the curse of being ugly because of their skin color. Throughout the book Pecola feels ugly and does not like who she is because of her back skin. She believes the only thing that can ever make her beautiful is if she got blue eyes. Frieda, Pecola, Claudia, and other black characters have been taught that the key to being beautiful is by having white skin. So by being black, this makes them automatically ugly. In the final chapter of the book, the need to feel beautiful drives Pecola so crazy that she imagines that she has blue eyes. She thinks that people don’t want to look at her because they are jealous of her beauty, but the truth is they don’t look at her because she is pregnant. From the time these black girls are little, the belief that beauty comes from the color of their skin has been hammered into their mind. Mrs. Breedlove and Geraldine are also affected by the standards of beauty and the impossible goal to look and be accepted by white people. Throughout “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison uses the motif of beauty to portray its negative effect on characters.

A form of adversity is in Alice Walker’s essay, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, it shows how a person’s perception of everything is always greatly influenced by their past experiences. Walker uses various elements throughout her writing to show her outlook towards her appearance. Walker uses the incident that happened in her childhood to show that a persons mindset can be changed by a experience and how her attitudes changes from a sassy, conceited kid to a matured and powerful women who finally sees beauty in her life. Alice Walker’s essay is a great example of a person whose fear of adversity allowed themselves to be worn down by it. She begins the story with a cocky outlook on life where she knows she is beautiful. “I’m the prettiest!” (Alice Walker), as a young child she would use her

The articles written by Walker, Angelou, Eighner and Mairs, teach about accepting yourself and overcoming personal problems in there essays on personal accounts. By contrast Williams, Quindlen and Kristof articles talk of issues in today’s society and how as a group we can solve these issues in essays covering cultural and the environment. These articles became some of my favorites throughout the semester for being able to relate so easily, but also the joy of reading the authors stories to be able to improve my own writing.

Throughout half of Walker’s life she judged beauty based on physical appearance. This is evident when she believes she is not beautiful after receiving a scar in her right eye from the accident that occurred. She sees the disfigurement as a blockade to being truly beautiful caused from her perception. Before the accident she loved herself fully, claiming “I’m the prettiest” compared to her siblings (page 42). After the accident she soon became embarrassed to even lift up her head, afraid that eye contact with people will reveal the ugly scar on her eye. It is not until she is a mother and her child surprises her by saying, “Mommy, there’s a world in your eye” that she begins to see beauty outside of appearance and looks more into the heart (page 47). She realizes her eyes, specifically the one with the mark, tells of the hardships and pain that she went through. She loves that her scarred eye is able to tell a story; hold a world that she lived through. This encounter fully awakens her from the ignorance she suffered and no longer became blinded from her hidden

This essay reflected before and after the accident that scarred Walker emotionally and physically throughout most of her childhood. The accident that occurred was her brother accidently targeted her eye with a bb gun. The effects following this event led to her insecurity and differentiation from society. She no longer felt like herself, and only upon the comment of her younger daughter did she learn to embrace this ‘defection’.

Unfortunately, many girls still struggle to overlook those expectations and be proud of who they are as individuals. In the essay, "Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self", Alice Walker talks about her life as a little girl and how she was praised as beautiful until an accident left her nearly blind, and forced to live with an altered facial appearance. She stated, "I do not pray for sight. I pray for beauty"(4). After many years of hating her physical appearance and feeling worthless, Walker finally realized that her insecurities were her backbones, for they transformed her into who she was meant to be. She became aware of her self worth that was buried deep within her pain and sadness,and she came to understand that beauty did not define who she was. "There was a world in my eye..and I did love it"(5). Society has a misunderstanding that certain standards of beauty need to be attained in order to feel accepted or to have a sense of dignity. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be seen through one's kindness, drive, intelligence, or compassion. Walker is proof that one can be beautiful by standing up to insecurities and flaunting imperfections. Beauty is so much more than one's body, for beauty is the overall impression one leaves on the

Beauty is a fundamental part of modern society, but has beauty become so important that it is essential to living a fulfilled and satisfying life? Jane Martin, the playwright who wrote the ten minute play Beauty, addresses the issue of the significance of beauty through the central conflict in her story. The two main characters Carla and Bethany represent beauty versus brains. Bethany, the brainy accountant, is jealous of her friend Carla, the beautiful, up and coming model. Bethany believes that Carla is living a more rewarding life that she is. To Carla’s dismay, Bethany uses her last wish granted from the genie in the lamp to become beautiful. Although the ten minute play Beauty is in unrealistic in nature, it provokes the audience to consider

The environment Alice Walker’s mother was placed in wasn’t her choice, which is how everyone is when they grow up as their guardians make the decision for them. However, once we become adults, as long as our current environmental situation allows us to branch out, we have the opportunity to choose what environment will also have control over us. No matter where you go, when you go back to a previous environment, you may see it differently than before, but the memory of that first environment will always have some control over who you are in both the physical and emotional aspect. The physicality of one’s identity can be thought out through a person’s looks, which includes: their natural skin color, hair and eye color.

Perception and opinions have shaped the world in very exceptional techniques. Perception is the way in which the person criticizes comments, complains or praises whether on animated or on unanimated objects. Similar positions have been portrayed in the book On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Smith uses various literary works and literary devices to develop her position into describing how animated and unanimated object shape the lives of the characters in the book. Some examples of work of art or aesthetics mentioned extensively throughout the book are Rembrandt’s art, Mozart’s painting and the Caribbean drawing of a naked lady.

Walker fears for Daisy Miller’s growing reputation and seeks to guide her towards salvation to behold a proper image. She offers Daisy to drive around in a carriage circling the town to allow people to see a conservative angle and kill the demeaning judgments following her actions. Daisy ignores the opinions of society and mocks concerns associated with the societal standard. She ridiculed Winterbourne’s concerns taunting,” that- to save my reputation- does Mr. Winterbourne think I should get into the carriage?” (43).

“You don’t always have to be something. You can just be, and that’s plenty” (Alice Walker). As simple as this sentence sounds, Alice Walker’s writing is far more complex. Alice is an African-American woman who grew up during a difficult time piece of history--the Civil War. It helped Walker understand the people around her should not be treated the way they were being treated so she decided to do something about it. Rather than taking the violent approach, she decided to use her words. Alice Walker writes conversationally; however, she is also a passionate writer who writes with an underlined meaning. Alice possesses all of these qualities due to events that have occurred in her life; without those events, Alice would not be the amazing writer