Leprosy In The Samurai's Garden

Stephen meets Sachi through Matsu, but eventually cultivates his own thriving relationship with her. Once she opens up to Stephen, she tells him about the isolation that came with the disease. In the beginning stages the pain was unbearable but Sachi also dealt with the fact that her “father would no

In this day and age, people tend to avoid being different. Fitting in with the status quo when it comes to physical attractiveness is considered the proper thing to do, yet in The Samurai’s Garden, the characters show their beauty in a unique way. Due to their circumstances, Sachi, a once beautiful member of a leper colony, Stephen, a young Chinese student diagnosed with tuberculosis and Matsu, a quiet man who chooses to live in near seclusion, are all regarded as outcasts. However, these challenges give them a chance to grow and mature into truly beautiful people, especially on the inside. Through unveiling Matsu and Sachi’s distinct personalities, Stephen discovers another dimension to beauty; through this, Tsukiyama conveys that the most

Secrets fill the garden. In Gail Tsukiyama’s novel “The Samurai’s Garden”, she uses metaphors to show the audience the garden and its’ curator in a mysterious light. Tsukiyama’s character Stephen gazes upon Matsu’s garden with wonder and amazement. He compares it to another world, “The garden is a world filled with secrets… Matsu’s garden whispers at you, never shouts; it leads you down a path hoping for more, as if everything is seen, yet hidden” (Samurai 31). Tsukiyama creates another world within the fences of the garden. She integrates the secrets of its’ caretaker into the aura of the garden. The metaphor to another world impacts the reader by allowing the reader to see the mystery and beauty that shrouds it. The cloak of beauty shows

Dr.Kesiraju Ramprasad said that “Beauty isn't about having a pretty face. It is having a pretty mind, a pretty heart, and most importantly a beautiful soul”. However, truthful the Doctors quote may be, it is often not what is viewed as important in real life situations. In society, beauty

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

Geraldine, a respected woman living in the community, does conform to the standard of beauty, and she feels that anyone else is greatly inferior. So as to retain the beauty, Geraldine loses her culture and her

If you ask twenty people to define beauty you will receive, in all probability, twenty different definitions. Beauty, being as ambiguous as it is, leaves room for interpretation. Alice Walker, in “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, attempts to demonstrate that perception is subjective, and she successfully does so. Albeit, our perceptions do change as we go through life, experiencing and learning. By taking the reader on a sequential journey throughout her life and establishing a sentimental and sympathetic tone, Walker is able to portray that accepting and loving yourself is greater than being considered “beautiful” by society.

Everyone thinks she is beautiful and highly uphold her until her sister, Psyche (Istra), is born and is more beautiful. No matter her looks, she and women today try hard to find love and be the most beautiful they can be, but always eventually fall short. Redival spends her days trying to find a man right for her but her looks can be perceived as someone less than her if someone prettier comes around as she states to Orual, “’The men are as likely to look at you as at me, now that they’ve seen Istra’” (34). By the end of the novel by C. S. Lewis she finds a husband and has the typical life as a housewife as expected due to her physical appeal. But, despite Redival’s good looks she is not treated the best as Psyche

Because of the sexual confidence Hannah Peace has, Sula must disguise her difference, just like her grandmother Eva had too. Eva’s drastic measures were repeated by Sula an act of survival and denial of powerlessness and vulnerability. Nel and Sula are regularly picked on by the same group of boys, causing Sula to take matter into her own hands. At one point, Sula takes out a knife and cuts off part of her finger saying, “ ‘If I can do that to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?’ ” (54-55). This severe act if Sula’s moment of self-recognition of her connection to her grandmother Eva. Here, Sula realizes that she has to fight against her own vulnerability, and establish her identity, hereby following her grandmother Eva’s example. Though this moment shows Sula’s inner strength, it can never disguise her enough of being different from the rest of her community. Just as Eva and Hannah, Sula continues the unpreventable, mature line of breaking past the typical gender roles of the time. Eva’s overly independent attitude and removal from caring and mothering a daughter correctly, leaves her daughters with unlearned, societal caretaking skills. This results in Sula’s highly inappropriate and unnecessary act of clumsy caretaking within her relationship with Nel. Yet, it is understandable because Sula has never been taught normal and conventional means for problem solving. The denial of motherly love from

Jane has gotten used to cruelty and biased behavior towards her average looks, and develops a miserable self-esteem that believes the only possible way to describe her exterior is “plain”. This self-esteem prevents her from even beginning to recognize that anyone could appreciate her or find her beautiful in any manner. The society’s typical reactions and judgments shaped Jane’s self-esteem, and prevented her from receiving equal treatment as that of a beautiful woman.

One day, she made a discovery that shocked and saddened her. When she closed her eyes, she could no longer clearly picture her beloved sister's face. This made her feel like she was failing her sister's memory, and she decided to 'punish' herself for this by sealing one of her eyes. Taking one of Nozomi's hair ribbons, and an old coin, she fashioned an eyepatch to cover her right eye, the missing eyesight her way of paying tribute to her younger sister. Her self-imposed punishment in place, she dove back into training and before long she was prepared for more formal

As the proverb goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty, as we know it, is subjective to each individual. However, some individuals are primed to perceive beauty as deriving from physique, clothing, and accessories; neglecting more important traits such as honesty and kind-heartedness. Aaron Shephard portrays in his short story, “The Hidden One: A Native American Legend”, that neglecting such traits results in failure. Any woman who makes deceitful attempts at proving they’re capable of seeing the Great Hunter is cast away. Little Scarface’s unpleasant older sister would “hold[] her down and burn[] her arms and face with sticks from the fire” (Shepard 1) and lie to their father about it. She claimed to see the Hunter and lied about that as well. The mistreated little girl is stripped of having appealing clothing and, what some may consider, a beautiful face; yet, only with her pure soul intact, she ultimately succeeds. The image of beauty the author is attempting to paint for you is that physical appearance only gets you to the door; the Hidden One, symbolized as the prize, is obtained with a “good heart”, free from “jealous[y] and cruel[ty]”.

The concept of beauty is shown to be highly valued in the story and the society that the story is set in. For example, Beauty chooses to marry the third and final man because he is a handsome scholar. Beauty is tricked into being pushed down a well because of beauty. “’Sister, come and look into the well. We will see which of us is the more beautiful’” (Lin Lan 129). They do not compare who is most skillful or who is the most intelligent; they value beauty so much that the concept is the only thing they decide to be compared on. The scholar, Beauty’s husband, is shown to also cherish beauty. He is horrified to see Pock Face instead of his beautiful wife and reacts very dramatically. “’Goodness! How changed you are! Surely you are not Beauty. My wife was never such a monster. Good Heavens!’” (Lin Lan 129). These examples serve as indicators of how much the characters, and therefore the story, are so intensely focused on the concept of physical

Natalie Grant’s book explains how our culture follows beauty and perfection. She takes a deep breath and tells the truth, shining the light on some very real and dark lies that we believe about what makes us beautiful.

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.