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Internal Characteristics Of Beauty

Decent Essays

American social consideration on external vs internal characteristics American culture has become troubled in deciding what characteristics make a person beautiful and how that correlates to how people treat them. Is it the external features, such as a person’s hair, eyes, complexion, or how someone dresses? Is it about internal qualities, such as intelligence, loyalty, or patience. Is it about more personal aspects such as person’s race, gender, abilities or sexual orientation? Is it a mixture of all these things or none at all? It also comes into consideration about what qualities weigh more heavily than others. Is there some type of grading system that society uses today that decides who is better than someone based on these qualities or has society become nonjudgmental to these things? A good reference to this topic is Jane Martin’s play Beauty. The play makes the reader question if external or internal qualities make you beautiful. Martin utilizes two characters that have two different types of beauty, physical appearance and intelligence, but hate the type of beauty they are given because they believe America views the other as better to have. The play reaches an emotional level when the reader realizes that one of the characters, Bethany, will use her last wish to become what she believes is beautiful. The girls both explain how their own qualities affect their lives negatively and how they think each other’s qualities would benefit them if they had them. Bethany

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