Beauty When The Other Dancer Is The Self Summary

Alice Walkers Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self speaks about how ones perception of beauty affects ones self worth. From childhood we see that Walker was praised for both her beauty and intelligence leading her to become self absorbed and snobbish. At this point I found her to be a annoying child and when she refers to her siblings who were unable to go to the fair due to the lack of room in the car as the "unlucky ones" it seems though she thinks she is better than them. Though as she grows she gains respect for her older sister and brothers. At the age of ten Walker was shot in the eye by her brother while he was playing with a be-be gun leaving her eye blind and deformed. Overwhelmed by shame and self loathing as a result of her injury she

When Alice Walker was eight years old, her brother accidentally shot her with a BB gun in her right eye. She lost the use of that eye and was left with scar tissue that was noticeable. Other kids would ridicule and laugh at her. This caused her to become very withdrawn. She became more of an observer and she started composing poetry in her head. She was afraid to put them on paper because she thought that her siblings would find her writings and tear them up.

In “Beauty: When the Other Dance Is the Self”, Alice is forced to lie for her siblings in order to protect them and herself. Alice must lie to protect herself because her two brothers will hurt her because she told on them causing them to be in trouble. Next, I will discuss the quickly changing events that cause Alice to lose sight in one of her eyes. At the age of eight, Alice is a tomboy, where she oftenly hangs out with her brothers. The parents of Alice and her

Almost everyone in the world feels a need to belong. When searching for one’s own identity, the questions of where power lies and who disperses it derive. The choices to separate, conform and individualize play the most significant role in identity because those choices refer individuals to the people they associate with. Deirdre N. McCloskey’s “Yes, Ma’am” and Alice Walker’s “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” relate in finding an identity and self-accepting oneself.

In the essay, “Beauty: When the Other Dance is the Self “, Alice Walker describes how her identity is affected when a traumatic accident occurs that mangled her eye and took her eye sight. One been confidence in her looks she felt exalted by those around her. After her accident occurred she struggled with accepting her new appearance and the consequences that came along with it. Walker became insecure which cause she to feel disregarded, and misunderstood. After years of pain, she got her “glob” removed which helped her gain her self-confidence but still felt overlooked and unnoticed by the people around her. Walker’s journey is proof that accidents can cause changes that you must accept. Although she felt overlooked by adults in her life, she finally embraced her scar, “imperfection”, when a child saw the real beauty in her eye.

But, for the first time, her daughter stares into her eyes, and her response is astounding as well as startling, considering her age. She says, “Mommy, there's a world in your eye. Mommy, where did you get that world in your eye?", and for the first time since the beginning of the piece, we experience Alice’s confidence once again (6). She realizes her self-worth, and that it is not determined by her appearance, she says, “Yes indeed, I realized, looking into the mirror. There was a world in my eye” and although she went through a good portion of her life believing that she wasn’t beautiful, or sufficient, it was all worth it because it taught her to love herself even more now (6). To end the piece, she illustrates a dream she had: it’s her old self-doubting self and another her, confident and radiating, coming together. She is once again able to speak of herself in a positive way, she states that the latter self is “beautiful, whole, and free. And she is also [her]”, which, in a way, exhibits that same attitude she had as a two-year-old (6). Twenty-seven-year-old Alice completely contradicts twelve-year-old Alice, who would “abuse [her] eye” and who did “not pray for sight” but “for beauty” (4); she now speaks of herself

A person’s perception of anything is always influenced by their experiences. Alice Walker, the writer of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, is no different in regards to her perception of beauty. Walker uses various stylistic elements throughout her writing to convey her shifting outlook toward her own beauty. She also employs various rhetorical strategies in order to deliver a clear and luring story that keeps the reader engaged as she describes her life as a flashback. Walker uses the accident that happens during her childhood to prove that one’s mindset can be altered because of a profound experience and how her attitude completely transforms from a conceited and arrogant child into a newly reborn woman who sees a new kind of

When Alice begins to grow forgetful at first she discards it, but when she gets lost in her own neighborhood, she realizes that something is terribly wrong. She didn't want to become someone people avoided and feared. She wanted to live to hold her daughter, Anna’s, baby and know she was holding her grandchild. She wanted to watch her youngest daughter, Lydia act in something she was proud of. She wanted to see her son, Tom, fall in love. She wanted to be able to read every book she could before she could no longer read. Alice once placed her worth and identity in her academic life, now she must examine her relationship with her husband, her expectations of her daughters and son and her plans for herself. “Losing her yesterdays, her short-term memory hanging on by a couple of frayed threads, she

Even though it is a struggle, being yourself is the best thing that you can be. When trying to be yourself, it is common to face obstacles and hardships that can get in the way of achieving your goals. The character Squeaky from “Raymond’s Run”, by Toni Cade Bambara, faces obstacles and hardships, but in the end she learns that people should not expect her to be someone she is not. She learns to be herself, and no one else. The song, “She Used to Be Mine” by Sara Bareilles is all about being yourself. It deals with obstacles like facing your fears, and the idea that nobody is perfect. The story “Raymond’s Run”, explains how Squeaky, the main character, does not feel accepted by anyone. Her mother expects her to be a “typical girl”, and her

In the quote above, William Shakespeare, describes that a person needs to place who they are and being confident above everything else. Nothing is worse than regretting a situation in life because someone wasn’t being their true self. No one should ever let success, a relationship, or what people think of them get in the way of being who they are. They may be putting on a mask and acting like a different person to try and impress the popular group in school or someone that they really like. In the long run, they may miss out on a great friend or relationship where they are not judged . The 90’s film, “Clueless”, is a perfect example of this quote. The protagonist, Cher Horowitz, tries changing who she is to find a boyfriend. She wants to

She feels like no one looks at her the same anymore that everyone has different opinions about her, and they all feel that Alice is a new person all together including her family especially her sister. Alice’s sister feels like she is not the same person and will not treat her the same because of her looks even though Alice explain “ [t]his is me in here Jenny, my brain is still me” (Coakley 2). Alice is really trying to help her family especially her twin sister Jenny recognize that it is still her on the inside of her body “my brain is me”. Alice wants to keep close to her sister and does not want to lose her because she thinks slice does not look the same. Part of the reason why Alice does not know her identity is because her family is not understanding and they need to try and realize it is Alice to boost her confidence in who she is. In addition Alice knows her family has not been very supportive of her new body all her family cares about is how different she looks and that they feel like she acts differently, they do not seem to care how them acting like this affects Alice when they judge who she really

In the novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the main character, Alice, undergoes quite a change. During the time the novel was published, parts of the world were in the victorian era. The Queen at the time was Queen Victoria, in which the era was named after. During this era, knowledge, class and reason were greatly valued, and stressed. This time period ended in the year of Queen Victoria’s death. Throughout the novel, there are many ways that show how Alice begins to understand the world in adult terms, matures, and grows.

The dance that I will be focusing on is entitled: thinking sensing standing feeling object of attention. The dance, to me, symbolizes the socialization of persons in Western civilization concerning gender roles. In the beginning there are gestures that are separated from emotion and full-embodiment, but as the dance progresses the gestures become more meaningful and recognizable. The lighting starts out very specific and narrow, then the light encompasses the entire stage, and eventually the dancers are silhouetted as they return to a familiar movement motif in the end. The music is mainly instrumental with occasional soft female vocals, and the lyrics suggest emotion, which is interesting because the dancers do not convey emotion until

A major influence on Alice's identity was when she was a young child and her grandmother would tell her stories about events that occurred in Cambodia. In Alice's teenage years, her beloved grandmother has a stroke, developed disabilities and eventually had passed away. It is around this time where serious psychological problems occur for Alice. This almost forces her into a mental state in which she knows she does not fit in with the Australian culture. She believed she had to do everything she could to change that otherwise Alice knew she would break down mentally. Alice was forced to attempt to fit the social standards of Australia.

'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll seems a first a simple fairy tale, but in fact its meaning is a lot more profound. This novel criticizes the way children were brought up during the Victorian era. Carroll presents the readers with the complications these offspring must endure in order to develop their own personalities/egos, as they become adults. For Alice, Wonderland appears to be the perfect place to start this learning adventure. A way to understand her story is by compering it to the world as if being upside-down. Nothing in Wonderland seems to be they way it’s supposed to. The first lesson, Alice must learn in this peculiar journey through Wonderland is to achieve separation from the world around her and to stop identifying herself through others, in order to discover who she