What Is The Theme Of The Uglies

In this day and age, society has built standards to how citizens should look, talk, wear, behave etc through social media, films, celebrities, friends and family. The youth has now taken place in this and now feel that if they did not meet society's standards, they aren’t beautiful or handsome. Some leaders and motivational speakers are good at telling others to love themselves and to accept how they look. Nevertheless there are still those who need to seek help and those who beat themselves up because of how they are. However is social conformity really the key to happiness? Social conformity is notoriously found in the book Uglies where turning 16 gives you the opportunity to undergo plastic surgery to change your appearance into a “pretty” look. Tally Youngblood is a rare example of a 16 year old girl who hasn’t undergo plastic surgery and was sent to the Smoke, a small town where those who don’t believe in plastic surgery or the society's ambitions go to live like the people of today. However Shay, a friends of Tally’s, is an example of an “ugly” who has a very strong opinion about the surgery, a very negative opinion about it.

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

David slowly starts convincing Tally that flaws aren’t important. “Maybe he really could see past her ugly face. Maybe what was inside her did matter to him more than anything else” (Westerfeld 264). Tally thought being pretty only mattered on the outside. When she met David, he showed her that it’s okay to not look or be perfect. David showed Tally that don’t matter as much as she thought they did. Shay tries to prove to Tally that being unique is better than falling into what society deems pretty. “We don’t have to look like everyone else, Tally, and act like everyone else. We’ve got a choice. We can grow up any way we want” (Westerfeld 86). The author writes this passage to show that being unique and your own self is more important than fitting in. Being different from others shows one’s true identity, and all of the extraordinary things about someone. At the beginning of the Uglies, we see how all of the uglies call each other by their flaws. They think that their flaws are identifying them in a negative way. Therefore, throughout Tally’s journey, the author tries to show that having flaws shouldn’t be negative. That having flaws are what make a person unlike anyone

“In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly”(Scott Westerfeld). In the future, everyone is considered ugly and live in imperfect Uglyville, until they turn 16. The magical age where you get The Operation. The Operation that turns you pretty, lets you live in perfect Pretty Town, and is considered the most important thing in life. In the novel Uglies, written by Scott Westerfeld, he features the dystopian archetypes of a dehumanized state and conformity showing the result of everyone looking and acting the same way so the government can control them and maintain a position of high anarchy.

In all stories there is someone who changes after something happens and it turns them into someone they aren't. An example is a person turn into someone you never expected them to be because they are hiding themselves. Its also important to think before everything you do because the aftermath can be unreal. The characters in the“ Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson and the short story,” Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl could have learned their lessons. In the story, “ Possibility of Evil” Miss.Strangeworth takes her hate out to an family by writing letters to them. In “Lamb to the Slaughter” Mary makes a bad decision after finding out her husband is leaving her. These stories tell the reader that people around you have a side they don't show, but sooner or later it will come out of them.

The book “Uglies,” has a good side and also a bad one to humanity. In the beginning of the book (which would be known as the good side) life in all of the cities were all in order. Everyone started in “Uglyville” were at school they learned all about the good

Cable tells Tally, “’Then I’ll make you a promise too, Tally Youngblood. Until you help us, to the very best of your ability, you will never be pretty” (Loc 1309). After hearing this, Tally reluctantly agrees to help Dr. Cable find Shay. This moment is important because it symbolizes weakness and selfishness in human nature. Sometimes, we are willing to go against someone we love if it benefits ourselves. Tally wants to be perfect so badly that she is willing to turn her friend in to the authorities to get the operation she wants.

People are judged for their appearance all over the world, every day. People with brown, ragged clothes are assumed to be less intelligent, or homeless. People with long hair are assumed to be female. There are many stereotypes that limit the social actions of many people, and it is not just in real life. Rodman Philbrick shows that these stereotypes are not always true in the book “Freak The Mighty” in the form of Maxwell Cane, Kevin, Loretta, and Iggy Lee. All of those characters are misjudged by others, and in some cases, even by themselves. The message that your appearance does not determine who you are is very important, and applies to everyone everywhere.

When the main characters of the stories decide that they are certain that they want their flaws removed, they do not hesitate to immediately remove their imperfections. These abrupt decisions go entirely wrong for both women in the end. After all of the pressure from their peers, they remove their flaws permanently. As the unwanted mark fades from Georgiana’s face, “the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere” (Hawthorne 301). Her flaw finally leaves her face, but it unfortunately takes Georgiana’s life along with it. Similar to this situation, in “Barbie Doll” the main character decides to remove her flaws by simply cutting them off. She removes her nose and legs “and offered them up” (Piercy 771). Piercy writing that she is offering her flaws up, the author is unmistakably symbolizing

Considering the fact that neither Anthony or Gloria experience any type of growth throughout the story, it goes to show that there is not a proper plot shown throughout the novel. Finally, The Beautiful and Damned has no type of story structure. There are three parts to the book, but no introduction, middle, or ending. The novel is told in third person, but it is hard to make sense of the material due to the fact that the lives of the Patch’s is being told through both Anthony and Gloria’s eyes. This would explain why it is a deeply flawed novel that lacks common characteristics. In other words, The Beautiful and Damned fails to produce any of the compelling criteria that is needed to grab the readers attention, and is therefore an ineffective novel.

However, many of us judge beauty only in terms of physical appearance. We can see similar scenarios in the stories “Fat Girl” by Andre Dubus, and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Judging beauty in terms of physical appearance is not the best way to describe beauty. Without looking perfect, a person still can be wonderful with his or her great virtues. So, a human being with a good heart, kindness, intelligence, love and happiness is beautiful.

“‘Im Dr. Cable and this is special circumstances’” (105). Dr. Cable is the mastermind of the pretty operation. She makes the society think they are just getting an operation to be pretty. Really, she is changing more than just the looks. She is programming all pretties to have the same personality. They are unaware they are giving her complete control of the society. ”‘Not long after our discovery, special circumstances paid us a visit, they took our data and told us not to look further or we’d lose our licence, so it was either run away, or forget everything we’d found’” (266).This is why the uglies and pretties live separate from one another and are not allowed to socialize together. They do not want the uglies to notice the real change that happens after the operation. “You don't believe that crap do you, that there's only one way to look, and everyone is programmed to agree on it?” (“Uglies quotes”). Do you think Tally will find this out before she gets the operation, or will it be too late?

The theme that is developed throughout the novel Uglies is that you can be so focused on being pretty that you lose many other things and forget what matters. In the beginning of the novel, Tally goes to New Pretty to see one of her old friends and he shuts her out because she's an ugly and he's a pretty when they were best friends. In the text it says “Why didn’t you write to me?’ ‘I tired. But it felt bogus.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld is the first in a trilogy of novels set in a futuristic world in which everyone is surgically altered at the age of sixteen to be pretty. In this novel, Tally cannot wait until her birthday when she will be turned pretty and allowed to live in New Pretty Town with her best friend Peris from childhood. However, when Tally's new friend, Shay, runs away, Tally is told by Special Circumstances that she will remain ugly all her life unless she agrees to track down Shay and bring her back. Uglies is a novel that questions the idea of social pressure to be beautiful and the quest of young people to conform to one specific idea of normal. Tally's constant companion and best friend, Peris, is three months older than her and

Imagine if when an individual conquered his/her largest challenge, one was presented with an incredible reward. Surprisingly, three uncommon literature works shared this same thought. Within Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, the main character, Tally Youngblood, triumphed through an exhausting and tough journey to a place that led her to learn about her self-worth. Furthermore, The Third and Final Continent describes the narrator, Jhumpa Lahiri’s, adventure of his life through three continents and poor living conditions during that time resulting in Jhumpa Lahiri finally finding a value in life. In Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If”, the audience witnessed if statements that expressed if someone was able to conquer the troubles in their life, the world