Paradise Lost Vanity

With a name like Tris (short for Beatrice) Prior, the heroine that Shailene Woodley plays in this sci-fi thriller is custom-built to be a young-adult role model. She begins the film, derived from Veronica Roth's debut novel, with a major dilemma.

The central message of this work is that society is obsessed with appearances. The point the author is trying to make is beauty should not be the most important trait of a person. In today’s society everything is based on looks, people are more concerned about a person’s outward appearance. People strive to

“Beauty is in the heart of the beholder” H.G. Wells. But does our society today actually care about what is on the inside? If you look at any magazine today, all they talk about is how to better your outside appearance. This constant ridicule has stemmed from the Bronze Age, and has continued throughout. Throughout history women have been using their good looks to achieve high social status, power, and a lavish life. The Bronze Age has paved the road for discrimination against the less attractive and privileged. In our everyday world today one can see the favoritism in the social, political, and professional world. In my research paper I will delve into the subject of beauty and how the Bronze Age has made our world today require and want

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.

From the different cultural beauty standards, to the double standards between males and females, to the dangerous ways to achieve these “ideal looks”, should these factors really define your beauty? In the essay, Pigott constantly changes the way she looks because she feels that in order for her to be defined as “beautiful”, she needed to be acknowledged by her peers and friends; in other words, she felt the need to conform herself to societal norms in order to feel “accepted”. Due to this, Pigott unknowingly wears a mask and hides her true self from the world. The societal pressure she experienced has blinded her from seeing her beauty and has lost her self-worth as a beautiful woman, as she believes that pleasing others and receiving compliments are the only factors that make her “beautiful”.

In Early Modern England, the idea of men being superior to women was thought to be a God-given law. Sexism, though not yet coined as an English word at the time, was very prevalent in this time period and bled into the writing it produced. John Milton’s Paradise Lost is no exception to this, as it explores human sexuality and gender roles. It has been argued that when Adam and Eve are described as “Two of far nobler shape erect and tall,/ Godlike erect” (4.288-289) there is no distinction between the two, and that they are being portrayed, even by Satan, as equal. This is the reader’s first introduction to Eve who, based on these two lines from Paradise Lost, is Adam’s equivalent in power and in majesty. However, this passage cannot be isolated and taken as the theme of the entire epic work: Milton goes right on to convey “Milton’s idea that true freedom involves obedience to natural superiors” (Milton, p. 2009, footnote 9) by saying that there is “true authority in men” (4.295). Throughout Paradise Lost, Milton shows stark contrast between Adam and Eve, overall implying that Eve is a less perfect character. In his epic poem, Milton makes Eve out to be the misogynistic image of a simple, subordinate woman by showing her as being distanced from God, trained to be obedient to men, and conveying the negative outcomes that transpire when Eve is persuaded into making her own decision.

Focusing on outer beauty can lead people to think rashly. Because some people value beauty, they crave others with fine characteristics. The desire for beautiful people causes gods to take advantage over people’s bodies. The powerful Zeus forcefully pursues a maiden after deciding “she was beautiful” and “charged down the slope after her” (8). His actions reveal the effect physical appearance has on people; he chases those who possess likable characteristics because of his lust, and doesn’t seem to acknowledge their

A. “The allusion to pagan fable that most haunts views of Milton's Eve is her Narcissus-like behavior when, fresh from her Creator's hand, she pauses at the verge of the mirror lake attracted by her own reflection and has to be called twice: first by God, who leads her to Adam, and then, as she starts back toward the softer beauty of the face in the lake, by Adam himself.” (McColley 63).

The development has created much controversy because how it decides to present its perception. Humanity is at fault for how the beauty industry decides how to advertise the perfect image. Yet, in the twenty-first century, there has been a turn of events. Those have educated imaginations are realizing how one standard of beauty is not enough for the millions of versions of beauty there are. Despite, wanting to have no standards of beauty, the educated know that this is no physically possible. Frye perfectly summarizes, “ The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then, is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in. Obviously, that can’t be a separated society, so we have to understand how to relate the two.” (86) The educated imagination interprets how they want their society without losing the connection to what we live in. The beauty industry represents the society we live in: superficial, materialistic, and self-indulgent. The educated imagination represents the ideal society: accepting of all and self-confidence. Although it cannot be the ideal society, there are still possibilities of a society where beauty is not a forced by people sitting at a board table. The mixture of these two societies can develop into a society where beauty is not only external but internal. Having the educated teach the weak imaginations how to comprehend the repercussions of the beauty industry, but still, understand it is difficult to change a hundred-year-old tradition. Standards of beauty will always be part of society, it is just how will society determine what is an illusion and

In Paradise Lost, Eve is viewed as a vain individual and is seen as thought to be a beautiful being. Eve explains, “as I bent down to look, just opposite, a shape within the wat’ry gleam appeared, bending to look on me…but pleased I soon returned” (Milton, 460). Eve made this comment as she was looking at her reflection in a lake and found that she has pleased with the way her reflection appeared. She is also seen as a strong wife figure. Eve says “like consort to thyself canst nowhere find” (Milton, 447).

When people think about beauty, most of the time their thoughts go directly to physical beauty and grace. We blind ourselves and pay attention to the physical appearance, desires, and vanity. As a result, people are transforming into egocentric, narcissistic, and self-center monsters, by living behind what matters, our inner beauty. Nowadays, values and principles have change, and is considered a privilege to find an honest and true relationship. These stories are facts, beliefs, supernatural beings, and often they provide individuals with lessons and reflections that people can apply in their daily lives. The myth Narcissus and Echo tells the story of a handsome man whose name was Narcissus. He hunts and meets a nymph named

The world still values beauty over other aspects like personality or intelligence. The way Pope criticized people 300 years ago still applies to modern day. Today, many people’s main concern is their appearance and overall personality. Those who are vain mainly place focus on one’s self rather than the people around them. Although, there is a difference between self-confident and vain. People who are vain or prideful can be shallow, know-it-all, and ill-mannered. Self-confident people do not just focus on themselves. People with self-confidence care about other people, ask for help, do not criticize others, and can admit if they made a mistake. Just like Pope’s poem, the way conceited people are portrayed is overstated, but can still be applied

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.

Autotheism, the worship of oneself, has come about in Vanity Fair as a result of selfishness-the fair’s residing

Together, we can lower the numbers of people dying from eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries by resisting the beauty ideal. We can choose “to not participate in the beauty rituals, to not support the industries that produce both images and products, and to create other definitions of beauty” (WVFV, pg. 232). The most crucial and easiest solution is to create other definitions of beauty. Ultimately, it is up to the individual to decide what is beautiful. What if someone decided that the only thing that could contribute to one’s beauty is who someone is on the inside? Wouldn’t our world be a completely different place? Instead of