Later in the quarter, just weeks after the mini movie played out in my head, I sat at my desk, chewing on abandonment. Not able to swallow any more rejection, it sat in my mouth, provoking nausea. For many years of my life, I suppose I had been just a little vain, and not only is vanity a bad characteristic to embody but also it is possibly the most self-defeating. It was vanity, pouring acid down my throat, eating me from the inside out.
I wondered why being pretty had to be so painfully confusing. I had gained the attention of many men by being pretty. However, holding their attention proved to be much more of a challenge. With me, people tend to move on. Once I fell in love, I was pretty much stuck there; dwelling in love alone is probably the most painful experience.
My thoughts bounced from how cute I believed I was to how unattractive the new women in my ex’s lives were. Why do men always leave for an ugly woman? I thought to myself.
I have always been satisfied with my curly hair and bright smile, my weight was my biggest battle, but even when I gained weight, people would tell me, “You are beautiful for a being a big girl.” I guess a compliment they could have kept.
With Trenton, my beauty, once again, had betrayed me. It pretended to be enough; however, as soon as I became comfortable, beauty turned its back on me. It didn’t keep him with me. My looks slapped me in my face and reminded me there was pretty around every corner. Settled on the deserted island Trenton had left me on, I secluded myself from the rest of the class as a gesture to be left alone. I hadn’t the mental space to engage in even light-hearted conversation. Making matters worse, my compulsive thoughts kept my mind tied up in the painful events of the past. Trenton’s voice arrogantly strutted through my mind.
“Naysay, you just want to know if I have a woman, and it is none of your business!” his cold voice froze time. I had phoned to ask for money to buy a breast pump to feed our growing infant and satisfy an overwhelming desire to bond with Justice in a nurturing way.
Trenton’s mother picked at my invisible scabs, too. “Naysay, your love for Trenton was one sided. You wanted too much, and he was not ready for any of it. He
Although, beauty is longing for it is not always beneficial to the beholder. For instance, McIntosh explains how “these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant, and destructive” (31). Sadly, I can relate to her feelings many people do not see beyond my looks and I often find myself becoming part of a stereo type. Many people believe that because I am attractive I wont have to work to be successful. Others express how I will probably end up marrying a wealthy man who is older.
“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.
The two admire her beauty as she combs her hair and reads a book, before retreating to the front yard. Scott, fed up with being ugly, tells the narrator “they need to talk about this” - they need to figure out a way to be attractive. I feel like many people can relate to how Scott and the narrator feel, not just myself. No matter how attractive you are, you’ll always have something about yourself you despise. Something that you think is just plain ugly.
He cried on my shoulder that morning in his hospital room when he saw himself in the mirror for the first time. The right side of his handsome face sagged, and he couldn't open his drooping eye. He didn't cry because of vanity, but rather because the image looking back at him represented a lost way of life.
Since the dawn of time, women have been judged based on their looks. In today’s society, women who are conventionally beautiful are seen as less capable than the rest of the population, especially men. As a girl in today’s society, I’ve been judged based on my looks since the day I was born. Every woman on television, in movies, or in magazines is harshly photo shopped to fit the standards society has set for physical beauty. When you grow up in that sort of environment, you have no say in whether or not that affects you. Orual, Redival, and Psyche are experiencing the same situation in Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. In their own ways, each girl’s thoughts and action were determined solely be the world’s impression of them.
The subjective element of beauty involves judgment, not opinion. Many people feel beauty is only something seen by the eyes. St. Thomas Aquinas views beauty in both the supernatural and natural orders. Aquinas lists the attributes of beauty to be found in nature. These are; unity, proportion, and clarity. We will see how these attributes of beauty are seen through the eye and felt by the heart.
The older I got, the more pressured I felt to fit into society's idea of ‘beauty’. My friends
Call me skinny, call me fat. Call me pretty, call me ugly. It doesn't matter. I'm still me. And that's a lesson we sometimes need to remind ourselves. True beauty is not in your face or in your dress but in your dignity.
By maintaining a facade of “normalcy”, I became instantly popular, and I gained influence that I had never thought possible. Girls looked to me for advice on everything from boys to hairstyles, and I reveled in my “superiority”. Thus, when sixth grade arrived, I was a bully; I became the people who had tormented me. I was deliberately vicious, ridiculing anyone who didn’t fit the impossible standard I used to hide my insecurities. I slashed people down and used their broken pieces to repair myself. The girl I had been seemed permanently lost to the monster I had become-until Julia.
The Aphorism “The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born,” reassured me that having a beautiful personality weighs heavily on the choices made when you see something wrong happening. For instance I once knew a girl who got verbally abused almost every day at school, and every time people made fun of her, I would just sit there watching and sometimes I would laugh at the insults thrown at her. I felt bad, and as I grew older I couldn’t help but think how much of a bad, ugly and vicious person I was for not helping. I knew it was wrong and I was totally against it, yet I allowed people to push her around while I watched silently. I guess because I didn’t want to get bullied for helping her, I kept quiet become witness. Furthermore adding to the pain
Growing up I was always labeled the “pretty one” amongst my siblings. When I was younger I never thought to question it, I even enjoyed it, until the day I began
Her grandiose false sense of self-worth and self-esteem came crashing down after the rude comment made by the young boy that was sharing the bench with her. After all, she was not as invisible and confident as she portrayed herself to be. The remark just reinforced her invulnerability and her feeling of being unworthy. Her exuberant and love for life suddenly turned into haunting nightmares revealing her distorted reality. She was so immersed in that reality that she was emotionally unable to deal with the new reality that was presented to her. She realized that her life was an empty shell enclosed with a false sense of reality that she created for herself. Although, the rude remark was too painful to handle, it unleashed an avalanche of
Now I see that there are good looking things, before photography I would only look at things I didn’t like. I would always think that people were ugly and when I’d see someone attractive I’d think of myself as ugly. I then found photography. I’d see people that weren’t models you’d think of when you’d go in a magazine and then I’d
The definition of beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty has negative and positive influences on mostly people. Beauty is described by the inside and outside of us. Due to beauty, our self-esteem has been hurt dramatically, especially towards girls. Beauty is not always about our outside looks but it’s about our inside personality also.
There are a large group of individuals who believe that outer beauty is temporary while inner beauty is untouchable and ever lasting, and that is what makes someone truly beautiful. Even photographers that photograph beautiful models say that they look for girls that portray a beautiful soul behind the face or a feeling of kindness that shows through. It is amazing how inner beauty can make an average looking person light up a room with there heart-stopping presence. It is a permanent quality which makes an individual interesting, reachable, and trustworthy. If you feel beautiful, your own confidence and self-worth brings out a glow of beauty that no outer beauty can compete with. If inner beauty is the genuine