Lucy Grealy's Autobiography Of A Face

In the book, The Skin I’m In author Sharon Flake, shines a spotlight on our culture's standard of beauty. Our society tells girls that if you don’t fit these standards you're not pretty, you aren’t good enough. “‘What’s my face say?’...’Not to hurt your feelings…but...I

She states “Being different was my cross to bear, but being aware of it was my compensation. When I was younger, before I’d gotten sick, I’d wanted to be special, to be different. Did this the make me t he creator of my own situation” (pg101)? It is her appearance, not her illness that changes her view of herself. Her entire identity becomes her face, and she tells herself over and over, when my face is fixed, I’ll start living. She found happiness and acceptance through her love of horses, working at a stable and spending time with the animals and the people there, who treated her like anybody else. But throughout adolescence and into young adulthood Lucy pinned her hopes on each new surgery as the one that would fix her face and make her beautiful and thus worthy of love.

Comically, the first time I ever wore black eyeshadow, my friends asked me “Em, what’s on your face? Did someone give you a black eye?” I knew from then on that cosmetology school was not in my future plans. I wanted my face to be flawless; to be airbrushed and smooth like the models in teen magazines. Society told me that in order to be beautiful, I had to fit into its confines of perfection. Now, I know that to not be true, for beauty is much more than looking like a Barbie doll, true beauty comes from possessing a good

It is difficult to portray a story of illness without incorporating a sense of melancholia; however, Lucy Grealy does exactly that in her personal memoir, Autobiography of a Face. Diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma at the age of nine, Lucy undergoes horrendous chemotherapy treatment, a surgery that removes one-third of her jaw, more than two years of radiation, and fifteen years of reconstructive surgery. Devoid of self-pity, this memoir is as innocent as it is candid and wise while Lucy recounts her struggle with cancer, disfigurement, and self-identity.

Some say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, this could not be farther from the truth. From a historical perspective, beauty has been shown to be in the eye of the conformer. Society sets the standard of beauty and, either willingly or unwillingly, people obey. One may ask what happens to those who do not fit the standard, and the answer is simple: they become invisible. The narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and Claireece Precious Jones in Push by Sapphire, are all examples of how societal standards blind the acquiescent and cloak the divergent.

Consequently, this led her to have a disfigured bottom half of a face. When she went to school she would only be put through a plethora of humiliation for how she looked and turned this into one of her biggest

Having the attitude and mental disposition of a child is something heavily mentioned in media. People crave to see the world with a youthful eye, being able to find joy and laughter in the worst of situations. This view of a child is shown in Lucy Grealy’s book Autobiography of a Face. In the following passage, Lucy describes getting her medical results back as a child and her reaction to her results. “I told them I had a malignancy. My mother said I seemed rather happy about it, and my teachers were shocked by my attitude. I told my teacher and all of my friends, probably with pride: I had a malignancy. I was going to have a big operation now” (Grealy 43). Her reaction is much difference than when an adult receives news of a disease. Most grown adults would begin to think of death, and how their mortality will affect their loved ones.

Millions of people suffer from having a negative body image without having a facial deformity. Grealy judged women around her as feeling happy with their appearance because they did not have a facial deformity. When in reality, those women felt the exact same way Grealy did. Eating disorders have a direct connection with having a negative body image. Lucy Grealy completely disregarded the lengths people will go to appear attractive by society’s standards.

Rather than simply compose a story that heroically depicted her battle with cancer, Lucy added authenticity and depth to her novel with themes that revealed her struggle to “fit in”, to cope with the pain of loneliness, of feeling lost within her own family, of enduring illness with stoicism, and to somehow find happiness in the aftermath of illness. This book report will examine how Lucy’s story metamorphosed from an examination of her childhood experiences with cancer into a search for her own identity as an adult.

It has always been mankind’s nature to be equal or better than one another; as a society, as a group, or as an individual. We have evolved greatly over thousands of years, however we remain as a society with some bad habits. This is shown in the novel Uglies, model’s participating in annual Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, and the hit T.V show Botched. In today’s modern society, individuals or the majority of people will alter the way they appear or act in order to fit in with present day “Beauty”.

It’s difficult to envision a world where idealized female imagery is not plastered everywhere, but our present circumstance is a relatively new occurrence. Before the mass media existed, our ideas of beauty were restricted to our own communities. Until the introduction of photography in 1839, people were not exposed to real-life images of faces and bodies. Most people did not even own mirrors. Today, however, we are more obsessed with our appearance than ever before. But the concern about appearance is quite normal and understandable given society’s standards. According to Jane Kilborne, “Every period of history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the

Lucy had lost parts of herself in this tragic journey because of her need and desire to fit in. These choices lead to her getting assaulted, getting a DUI, overdosing, Getting put in a institution, And eventually her death. Even though this book has some very intense and dark content I think it is very important for youth today to have something like this to look at. There is another book called Go Ask Alice it is a story very similar but it takes place in the mid to late 70’s. This book is so impactfull because it takes place in a modern day era and can be very reatible in some aspects.

One of the first instances of this is when the storyteller (who is eventually found out to be a middle aged man) and the listener (who I assumed could be someone of a young age) of the story, in an unknown setting, are arguing over how the girl in the story should look. Atwood says, “There was once a middle-class girl, as beautiful as she was good. Stop right there. I think we can cut the beautiful don’t you? Women these days have to deal with too many intimidating physical role models as it is, what with those bimbos in the ads. Can’t you make her, well, more average.” This is important because it’s evident in our society that people with a conventionally attractive face are seen as better than people who have a more average look. If we can open doors for more normal

When I was only a little girl, I had been told that true beauty came from within. Yet as I grew up, I noticed that looks mattered. From their attractiveness, race, age, or gender, anyone’s image was always up for scrutiny. Under those circumstances, I grew up thinking that if people were to judge me based on my appearance, that I should judge them the same way. Though, as I became older, I at some point learned that how a person looked wasn’t always in their range of control. A person simply isn’t born with the choice of picking what they look like, nor are they born with the choice of having a genetic disorder or disease. In that case, I believe that nobody should be defined purely based on what they look like.

When Lucy Grealy was nine years old, she was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a type of cancer that has very low chance of survival. Grealy had countless surgeries, both successful and unsuccessful, to not only cease her illness but to try to reverse the effects it had on her appearance. However, Grealy’s journey with cancer ultimately left her lacking half of her jaw and revealed her similar lack of a support system. Cancer did not merely affect Grealy- it also affected the people around her in various ways, complicating the way everyone interacted with each other. Throughout her memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Grealy describes the complex relationship she had with her family members, mainly her mother. This portrayal of a misunderstood