Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self by Alice Walker

Adversity is the difficulties or misfortune an individual may face in their life. Adversity can nurture an individual into becoming stronger or it can break a person apart and destroy them internally. People can face adversity when they a pressured or stressed in life to make quick decisions or even long term hardships. How an individual faces this adversity will determine how this affects an individual, whether it will nurture them to become stronger or whether it will tear them apart and this is what shapes their identity. In the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini shows how when an individual is faced with adversity, their reaction to it can force them to endure suffering over time building a sense of patience and strength which ultimately leads to them overcoming and changing the way they perceive themselves. In this novel Mariam is called to bring upon her strength to fight back against the expectations set on her and her identity, initially, she is unable to fight back and conforms to the expectations of those around her. However, as time passes and she continues to persevere and ultimately she is able to overcome and thrive over her suffering creating strength in her identity.

The short story/essay “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self” written by Alice Walker demonstrates the story of Alice accepting herself despite her flaws. As a child, Alice is a pretty, outgoing, and messy girl; but that all changes in a matter of seconds. Alice loses sight in one of her eyes, changing her perspective on life for a majority of her life. She went from the outgoing girl whom everybody seems to love, to the girl that doesn’t look up anymore in fear people will see her messed up eye. Growing up in 1947 with her family, she is not a rich child, in fact, almost dirt poor, so her parents can’t afford a car to take her to the hospital, contributing to her losing sight in her eye. Although she tells her parents a reason causing her to injure her eye, it is a lie, so that she is able to protect her siblings from becoming in trouble. Alice Walker demonstrates a theme of lying to protect siblings in her life which I can relate to because I oftenly as a child had to lie to protect my siblings as well.

Adversity is when someone faces a difficult event or misfortune. This can affect people in many different ways. Some people shut down and give up but others grow and become stronger when facing adversity. In the short stories called “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell the characters face different kinds of adversity and find a way to overcome it. In “The Sniper” the character faces adversity because he is in a war and kills many other human beings and he ended up killing his own brother. This is a major misfortune for the main character because he lost someone he card about and it was his own fault. But, he did not give up on his own life after this event, instead, he decided to never pick up a weapon and point it at any human being again. In “The Most Dangerous Game” the main character named Rainsford faces adversity because in the story, a man named Zarnoff, who hunts people for living, is now hunting Rainsford. So, Rainsford has to overcome his fears and use his knowledge to defeat Zarnoff. So, a person needs to be very ambitious and hardworking to overcome adversity.

Overcoming adversity is a process in which a person takes control of a difficult situation and learns from it. Adversity is a great teacher. But how one overcomes it is what counts. Though out the way people learn particular qualities about themselves and others. From this they have time to learn and grow from experiences faced.

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

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

Some may confine to societies expectations, rebel, or even enforce them; however, Alice Walker “dances” over the categories that society has believed she should be placed in to find something more meaningful and significant about herself. Alice Walker, known for her numerous awards and 1983 Pulitzer Prize winning work, The Color Purple, is an American novelist, poet, and activist. Her essay, Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self, is an autobiographical account of an incident that caused her to go blind in one eye when she was eight years old. Walker’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions, which were cultivated by the standards and pressures of society, are described in her story. While some may overlook its purpose, the metaphor of dance is significant because it represents her individual liberation of societal standards and categorization, which in turn influences readers to consider their oppressors and realize their self-worth.

In Alice Walker's "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, her view of beauty changes through different stages of her life. In her childhood Walker has a misunderstanding of beauty. She is concerned with superficial signs of beauty and fails to appreciate her inner beauty. A tragic mishap as a young child leaves her right eye blind and deformed. She enters a period of depression her life, living her life in shame and disappointment because she believes her beauty to be lost. Even getting surgery as an adult doesn’t help defeat her demons. She continues to struggle until she finds her inner beauty through her daughter’s love. As a child, Alice Walker got her definition of beauty from her family, in her teens she turned to her peers to define beauty, her perception finally changed again in adulthood when she discovered an inner beauty.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”- Helen Keller. As someone who overcame adversity, Helen Keller was an adamant believer in hardships building personal character, Horace’s assumption asserts that adversity brought forth the “elicit” talents that prosperous conditions hindered. As stated by the Roman poet, adversity has a mode of kindling talents from the stupor because adversity forces one to try new perception and provides one with the persistence of bearing hardship.

Adversity has a way of bringing up challenges unexpectedly, most people shrink away from it and get consumed, but when they push through it people come out stronger than they were before.

In the beginning of the essay, Walker shares childhood event that help shape her character. She describes how when she was two, she got chosen to go to the fair by her father because of her beauty, “Take me, Daddy, I’m the prettiest” She reveals that she thought people admired and glorified her because “she is the cutest thing”. She felt that everyone “seem to hold their breath” in her presence. “I can tell they admire my dress, but it is my spirt, bordering my sassiness (womanishness), they secretly applaud.” She illistartes that she was also adored because of her personality, which was confident and self-assured until it all changed. “it was great fun being cute. But then, one day, it ended.” After her accident the doctor said “ Eyes are sympathetic, If one is blind, the other will likely become blind too” which “terrified’ her. Although this was a professional opinion, but it never became true physically but symbolically it showed that she was blind that she didn’t see the positive and beauty in life, which she felt people didn’t see that In herself.

The author shows the reader what she wants them to think, feel, and do with the information through the structure. In the story there is a shift of setting and time. The Flowers begins in a bright morning adventure, but as Myop continues with her adventure, she ends up in a dank part of the woods. This structure is parallel to the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Myop is a pure girl who wanders among the vibrant foliage, “...bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes” (Walker para. 4). Eve is also tempted by a strange plant, an apple, as is Myop. In The Flowers, Walker wrote that Myop was drawn by blue flowers. Such parallels to the snake and apple symbols of the Genesis story will lead the reader to sense that

A grieving widow and mother finds out she has cancer. She worries about her family and who will take care of them. She wonders how she will pay for her medical expenses. Above all else, she wonders how this adversity fits into her life. The word “adversity” has a negative connotation when in many circumstances adversity gives rise to experiences that can change a person’s life and character for the better. The Roman Poet Horace once said “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” His words are proven time and time again through the many challenges that life throws at a person. Different types of challenges, including physical and mental adversity, give way to amazing strength and courage and open the door to new opportunities.

What's The importance of overcoming adversity? why should you try? Read this and you will change your mind on the way you see yourself or think of yourself.

The essay “Beauty of a dancer” by Alice Walker describes a powerful event that happens in her life when she was a chaild that changed her. She is young bright girl who is at the top of her class and is the little spark in her family. She is the beautiful girl and she knows it. One accident changes all that and the way she feels about herself for the majority of her life. Her brother owns a new toy Pellet gun rifle. As they were playing outside she was shot in her eye. The wound left her slightly blind and a noticeable scare on her eye. She no longer felt beautiful because of the scar and how people treated her after. It had a significant effect on her actions. Alice Walker does not see the pretty girl in the