The Concept Of Beauty In The Shining House By Alice Munro

Beauty is an imaginary construct created by society. People in society feel a need to be considered beautiful because they want to fit in, and be admired. The importance of beauty in society is prominently portrayed in the Twilight Zone series, episode “Eye of the Beholder” (1960). This episode tells the tale of a young woman, Janet, who strives to be accepted in her society because she looks different than others. Throughout the episode, Janet is trying to change herself to be accepted by others, yet she is not able to truly conform to the look of her society. The episode works to show how in society, the gaze of others is so deeply ingrained in people that it causes them to live for others.

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.

“Beauty” by Tony Hoagland was written in 1998. In this poem, Hoagland expresses his feelings on how women care too much about physical appearances. Throughout his poem he tells the story through the eyes of a brother of a girl who learns to love herself for who she is. Hoagland’s poem stresses the importance that beauty goes deeper than the surface. Throughout his poem, Tony Hoagland uses many literary devices to perfect his poem. These devices include the message, tone, imagery, figures of speech, and personification.

Judging from most classic fairy tales, a prerequisite for being the heroine of the story is being incredibly beautiful. Beauty, in life as well as literature, is incredibly valued. To be beautiful is to be good and vice versa. This line of thinking is well-represented in classic fairy tales. “Cinderella” by Lin Lan is one of the best examples of how a piece of literature, as well as a society, sees the relationship between virtue and physical attractiveness. Lin Lan’s Cinderella, as with many fairy tales, believes that beauty and goodness are strongly correlated, shows this through the characters and how other characters value beauty, and represents the opposite as well: to be evil is to be ugly. This point of view shown in “Cinderella” is

Ultimately, Miner exposes that american vanity is much more demanding than what it seems and that the standard of perfection through beauty is a burden put on all americans. Beauty is defined as qualities that pleases the aesthetic senses. There is no one solidified list of qualities in order to be beautiful. Beauty comes in many forms and we all find it in different experiences in our lives. Then sometimes beauty can be hidden right in plain

In Alice Walker's "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, her view of beauty changes through different stages of her life. In her childhood Walker has a misunderstanding of beauty. She is concerned with superficial signs of beauty and fails to appreciate her inner beauty. A tragic mishap as a young child leaves her right eye blind and deformed. She enters a period of depression her life, living her life in shame and disappointment because she believes her beauty to be lost. Even getting surgery as an adult doesn’t help defeat her demons. She continues to struggle until she finds her inner beauty through her daughter’s love. As a child, Alice Walker got her definition of beauty from her family, in her teens she turned to her peers to define beauty, her perception finally changed again in adulthood when she discovered an inner beauty.

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.

Beauty is defined as physical or mental characteristics that are pleasing to a person’s senses. Although beauty is often defined as pleasing, others may find the beauty in a person repulsive. “One man’s loss is another man’s profit,” is an appropriate quote that similarly describes the contrasting poems. Both of the poems aren’t only focused on beauty, but one is describing Helen as their savior or hope and the other is describing her as their destruction. The poems “To Helen,” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Helen,” by Hilda Doolittle convey different ideas of feminine beauty and romantics characteristics through the use of imagery, figurative language and tone to contrast the clashing views of beauty.

In the novel, Beauty by Robin Mc Kinley, the family of a wealthy merchant looses their wealth when the shipment boats get lost at sea. There are three daughters named Hope, Grace, and Honour, whom is nicknamed Beauty, and a father. The family is forced to move to the country and start a life more modest than accustomed. After the family adapts to country life, one of the older sisters gets married to an iron worker who used to work at the shipyard owned by the father. They have babies. Life goes on in the country.

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.

This quote, written by author Kate Angell, stresses that outer beauty is only the fragile glass of inner beauty, which is the reality. When reading this quote, I remembered a chapter from the book that really resembled and related to it. Something that could relate to anyone in any social-encountered situation, and give a new meaning to beauty in itself.

Beauty has been a word that people use to described objects, things and most important people. Beauty can be defined in so many ways. The play “Beauty” written by Jane Martin has more than just one meaning. The author uses beauty to be her main objective that makes almost every situation in the play revolve around “beauty.” Being that beauty is considered something almost all women want and it can lead to devastation when you get greedy and envious about it, as it did to both Carla and Bethany.

“Beauty is a curse on the world. It keeps us from seeing who the real Monsters are.” (-The Carver, Nip/Tuck). In the poems “To Helen,” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Helen” by Hilda Doolittle the speakers have conflicting attitudes about Helen’s beauty. Poe talks about how beautiful she is and compares her to their homeland and Doolittle

in the short story The Shining Houses, author Alice Munro utilizes the character Mary and her internal conflict to explore the responsibility that individuals feel they owe to their community as a whole or as individuals, which consequently causes a battle with their human nature. Mary’s growing relationship with Mrs Fullerton and her understanding of her neighbours desire to grow causes her to not fully understand who to stand with. Her struggle to form words and opinions that contradict those of her neighbours, meanwhile choosing to not sign the petition, demonstrates her connection to both parties. Alice Munro explores the differences between characters and the reality of progress throughout the text. Human nature drives us to think of

Beauty sets standards for society through appearance, especially in younger generations due to use of social media and picture editing. “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder” is a saying that has been around for ages (Plato, n.p.). It is an accurate phrase because of contrasting views within particular individuals. Beauty is present in the good deeds of community members as well as the unity exhibited through dreadful events. It is a flower bud breaking through the dirt into the fresh, spring air. To clarify how beauty is viewed, it is often times the exposure of evil accounting for the new appreciation of something beautiful. After recognizing the privileges we acquire, the existence of beauty is revealed and expressed more easily. In current society, appreciating beauty is substantial to