Research shows that only four percent of women think of themselves as beautiful. While this is a very small amount of people, it was even worse in the world of Tally Youngblood from Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. In the future time that she lives in, Tally, and all other people, not only thought of themselves as ugly but, were told that they were ugly. Every person was forced to become pretty through surgery at the age of sixteen and was treated differently until then. Throughout the story, Tally is doing things to change her world and her life. Tally made many difficult decisions during the course of the book, including going to the Smoke and betraying Shay, staying in the Smoke, and purposely being found in the city in order to become pretty. The first tough decision that Tally makes is to go to the Smoke and betray Shay. She is given the choice of either going there and giving away its location, or never becoming pretty. This would mean that she would practically never see her best friend again and that she would live a secluded life in Uglyville for the remainder of her life. After thinking about what she should do, Tally decides that …show more content…
A little while after everyone that could be saved was saved, Maddy announced that she had found a possible cure for the lesions that were caused by the surgery. She wanted to test the pill to be sure, but Shay would not take it. Maddy refused to give the cure to an unwilling patient so, Tally decided to become pretty in order to test the pill. If she didn’t do this, there would be no way to find out the effects of the cure. The plan was for Tally to return to Uglyville, get caught, have the surgery, and then have David take her back, to test the pill. Unfortunately, the book only goes to the moment right before Tally has the surgery. Although, the story does go far enough for one to know that she got through safely up to that
The book is a dystopian story where everybody is born and raised to one belief. The thought is that everyone must grow and be pretty on their 16th birthday. But Tally Youngblood, the main character of Uglies, gets her dreams of being beautiful destroyed when she learns the truth about what exactly goes down in that operating room.
Both were sneaking in the town and stayed friends since. Nevertheless there friendship has suffered major tests throughout the book however a bigger question may be that why did shay stick with tally even though she was an ugly in new pretty town, trying to meet an old friend and was about to get caught by the police? The answer is that Shay didn’t care about how she looked what situation she was in but she cared about her and her personality. Also, Shay’s action when meeting new uglies show that she isn’t judgemental however she is open to the littlies and the mid year
Westerfield perfectly portrays how we, as a society, see beauty. We see beauty as perfection, not a line out of place, and this judgement came about due to our desire for perfection. When picking up any magazine the front page is bound to be altered to show us how we should look. Gone are the days where voluptuous, well rounded women are considered to be goddesses. People in today’s society see models and movie stars starve themselves until they believe they are beautiful and Westerfield plays on this throughout the entire text. Tally sees herself as ugly because she does not notice anything good about her, until she meets David. When anyone compliments Tally she refuses to believe it as the truth, and it is unlikely that she has ever felt attractive in her whole life. Westerfield only describes Tally the way she sees herself and although it is in the third person the reader is given certain knowledge about what goes on through Tally’s mind which the reader does not have for any other character. At the beginning of the text the reader is led to believe that Pretties have the idealistic life; beautiful with not a care in the world but the reader may feel discomfort with how superficial it all seems. Nothing is wrong with the way Tally looks and the reader can presume that she is quite naturally attractive after receiving several compliments from two
When Tally got on the hover-board to go and get her operation she could tell that something was wrong, but she did not know what it was: “The strange-looking man flew with an aggressive impatience”(Westerfeld 99). Then Tally was brought into Special Circumstances and brought into a room. Dr. Cable then walks into the room that Tally was in and told her that she would not be getting the pretty operation unless she helped them find the Smoke. When Tally decides to betray Shay to help Special Circumstances, so she can get the pretty operation is when Tally goes off on her journey to the
While escaping, Shay and Tally wound up riding a hover board together. Tally starts apologizing to Shay for betraying The Smoke, but Shay is okay with being pretty now. “Tally thought of the lesions on Shay’s brain, the tiny cancers or wounds or whatever they were, that she didn’t even know she had. They were in there somewhere, changing her friend’s thoughts, warping her feelings, gnawing at the roots of who she was” (379 Scott Westerfeld). Tally is thinking to herself about what the government did to her best friend and why Shay would now be okay with the operation when she was so against it in the beginning. This proves that the government is putting lesions in all of the new pretties brains that they are not aware about. These lesions control people’s thoughts and change their personality so that there is no trace of their former selves which makes them beings of the government. This results in the government being able to maintain a position of high
She decided to go anyways and she crash landed in a river. She winds up breaking her hover board and has to walk the rest of the way across the entire city to get to the New Smokies. Then she realizes that she had landed in a Special circumstances experiment. After a week she escaped by using a hover- car and flies to the New Smoke. When she arrives David (her old boyfriend as a Smokie) is there with his hover board and they go to where everyone is staying in the New Smoke. But Tally finds out that Zane is still extremely sick. In the meantime, while they wait Tally decides to go to the river and take a bath. In the midst of it David goes to the river and tells her that someone had a tracker on them and the Specials should be there soon. He tells her everyone must leave, but first they have to find the bug. They check everyone but they find out that when Zane was in the hospital they implanted a tracker and they used it to find the New Smoke. They can’t take it out of Zane so everyone escapes except for Zane and Tally stays with him. A few minutes after the escape Special circumstances arrives and takes them both. When Tally awakens she realizes that Dr. Cable, a Special herself, has made Tally into a Special
does not think of herself as pretty, but in fact she believes that she is ugly
Throughout the years, the definition of beauty constantly changes. In our society today many children are told to be true to themselves, to be unique, to be who they are, etc.; But on the other hand social media and the celebrities on there are a constant reminder that there is a certain type of beautiful. The juxtaposition between being yourself and being what is “beautiful” has consistent grey areas and blurred lines making it almost impossible to keep up with what’s “beautiful”. The media, whether intentional or not, portrays this certain body image that you have to be in order to qualify as beautiful.
As I read Uglies, I consider the topic of acceptance because the message the author is trying to get across is that everyone should just be accepted for who they are. When I read this book, I see a society that needs to change. The place the characters live in forces them to get a surgery to change into what society considers “attractive”. You are called “ugly” or a “pretty” and treated differently based on your looks. In my opinion, this is very wrong. No one should be judged based on the way they look. Everyone should just be accepted for who they are and not be judged by who they are on the outside. Tally says in the book, “What’s inside you, matters more.” I think the author had Tally say that to prove his point even more; that
An important thematic statement in the book Uglies is that an individual can experience redemption through individuality. This thematic statement allows the reader to better understand how Tally Youngblood must use her personality to fix the damage she has caused. On page 311, Tally uses her quick and clever thinking to escape. “Just get whatever Dr. Cable wants. And don’t you dare touch one of those hoverboards.” “Don’t worry, I don’t have to,” she said, and snapped the fingers of both hands as loudly as she could. Croy’s hover-board jumped into the air, knocking the Special’s feet out from under him. The man rolled off the roof again, and Tally leaped onto the board.” The preceding quote is relevant to the theme because Tally was forced
Plenty of people can’t help but rank themselves against someone they consider prettier. To some, Tally can be annoying. She’s constantly whining about how she can’t wait to become a Pretty. However, what if people feel this way because they can relate to her? Admiring someone gorgeous and wanting to look like them is a struggle that many face.
Society has set certain stereotypes to girls and women about what it is considered to be beautiful that girl’s focus more in their appearances than in their internal selves. Every girl deserves to feel beautiful because they all are, but how can girls think that they are beautiful if there is always that constant reminder of what being considered beautiful is. It is often seen on TV various shows where little girls are being judged by the way they walk, turn, how their makeup and hair is done and what they are wearing, and obviously their beauty. Society has set such high standards of what is considered beautiful and girls are being the victims of those standards. Girls now feel that they are not beautiful enough because they do not meet
Why is it that so many women feel they just don't measure up when it comes to their looks? A new book entitled The Beauty
Characters- As the story progresses, the protagonist, Tally Youngblood, is discourteous toward her friends by putting her own feeling before theirs. The fact that Tally is ready to betray her best friend just to turn pretty shows that she is not a true friend. When Tally is talking to Dr. Cable on the day of her operation, “...and her expression turning horrified as she beheld her own appearance”. “That’s you Tally.
Shay disappeared to the “smoke:” that is where other uglies run to if they do not want the operation, but the government does not approve of this choice. Even in the smoke, only a few know the truth about the operation. What will they do to save the people from the operation? In the smoke, they embrace