Interior and Exterior
Beauty
Name: Yonghun Choi
Date: 04.04.2012
Professor: Teddy Choco
Class: Seminar
Dictionary defines beauty as "a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or
idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction." It means that beauty as
nowadays pursuing is defined by public, society. Therefore, people regard beauty by exterior
appearance. Regarding to people look luxury, pretty or handsome, people determine them
whether a beauty or ugly because people are influenced by society such as advertisements so
that they put stress on exterior appearance. Thus, a lot of people try to do plastic surgery so
that they get a beauty as public defines such as luxury, pretty and handsome.
However, plastic surgery leads people to lose their own characteristics. Even though
they get a beautiful face, they are not getting real beauty because beauty is coming from
interior and exterior pleasure and satisfaction. Wherefore, appearance-oriented view's
problem is coming from two problems which from society pressure and personal pressure.
Society pressure means that society defines beauty as a luxury, pretty and handsome so that
people try to be like them. And personal pressure means that individual's desire to achieve
beauty. It can be coming from a self-satisfaction, or care about others perceptions. However,
the problem is that although they gain a beauty appearances, they hardly gain an inferior
beauty which is coming from realize their inner minds.
It is fact that people affect from society's pressure, for example, society advertise a
beauty man or woman as decorating luxury or even by stereotypes. In "Personal Appearance:
Should I Change the Way I Look?" by Edward Iwata he was a person who yearned for white
society such as white's appearance so that he had s plastic surgery. That is, he affected from
society because in his journal, he states that "Many of us grow up swallowing the stereotypes,
accepting the role white society imposes on us."p.18 It represents that society makes us to
yearning a beauty person or images. And people who yearn for public or society's
representative beauty, they eager to be similar as them.
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Indeed, be influenced by society's trend, a lot of people regard beauty as advertisement shows
such as luxury. Therefore, people who have exterior problems such as abnormal face due to
illnesses, they are treated negatively other people. However, the problem is that abnormal
people be hurt from negative treatment so that it leads them to be timid and makes them to
lose their self-confidence, self-respect and even self-love. People who suffered exterior
discriminations such as negative treatments tend to hide themselves from others and avoid
people. Representatively, for example, in "MIRRORS" by Lucy Grealy states that "As a child,
Halloween was my favorite holiday because I could put on a mask and walk among the
blessed for a few brief, sweet hours"p.61 Thus, abnormal people be timid themselves and
hiding their faces are becoming as a habit. Therefore, the more they are timid, the more they
want to change their face. And it leads them to personal pressure.
Consequently, they try to do plastic surgery or even suicide. Even though they do
plastic surgery so that they get a beauty face, there are a lot of cases that they do not satisfy
because their interior minds are still not changed and they even lose their identities. That is, a
personal problem. In "MIRRORS" by Lucy Grealy testifies that "Society is no help; the
images it gives us again and again want us only to believe that we can most be ourselves by
looking like someone else, leaving our own faces behind to turn into ghosts that will
inevitably resent us and haunt us."p.63 It shows that even though people get a beauty face
that society represents, their own characteristic faces are leaving them and they become as a
ghost. The importance is that all people who do plastic surgery will not lose their
characteristics or not satisfy.
And there are a lot of people, who decide suicide even they do plastic surgery
because they not only lost self-confidence but also self-love. That is, they lost their identities.
In fact, altering images surgically or cosmetically do not change your identities. It is just
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exterior changes. They tend to meet other people's perceptions rather than their own
expectations. Grealy felt that "I somehow just couldn't make what I saw in the mirror
correspond to the person I thought I was. I wasn't just that I felt ugly, I simply could not
associate the image as belonging to me. My own image was the image of a stranger, and
rather than try to understand this, I simply ignored it." This result came from trying to meet
others expectations and perceptions. Even though Grealy got not an ugly face, but she could
just ignored it. As she said the image was a stranger, it represents that losing of identity.
That's why understanding and realizing inferior mind so that whether you change your
exterior appearance by surgically or cosmetically, you would not lose your identity.
Indeed, people who understand interior and exterior beauty can be lead to more
beauty people. The reason why understanding interior beauty important is that interior and
exterior beauty is in mutual relation. In fact, it is true that as people who realize the interior
beauty will be more stepped forward to the real beauty. As a definition of beauty, beauty
comes from pleasure and satisfaction. Satisfaction comes from self-confidence, self-love and
self-respect. And it leads you to be not timid from others. According to the "BEAUTY When
the Other Dance is the Self" by Alice Walker states that "Yes indeed, I realized, looking into
the mirror. There was a world in my eye. And I saw that it was possible to love it; that in fact,
for all it had taught me of shame and anger and inner vision, I did love it"p.74 Actually, the
writer was lost her right eye sight so that she suffered discrimination from others because of
abnormal face. However, as she states, after she realized the inner beauty she had selfconfidence and self-respect. It means that realizing interior beauty and loving it gives you
self-love, respect and confidence. Therefore, it leads you to be a dignified appearance.
Furthermore, a dignified appearance even encourages you to overcome the fear about
others perception even though you have an abnormal face. In fact, it is hard to realize inferior
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beauty. However, there are a lot of people who realized both interior and exterior beauties.
According to Sharon Curtin's "Aging in the Land of the young", he feels that "I sometimes
have a dreadful fear that mine will be the last generation to know old people as friends, to
have a sense of what growing old means, to respect and understand man's mortality and his
courage in the face of death."p.274 It shows that old people understand the fear, and they also
overcome it. What it representing is that experiences during their life and respect, understand
mortality brings you to build proper identity. At this point, proper identity means that you
know yourself, and respect yourself. Therefore, it leads you to have self-respect, love and
confidence. Finally, it brings you to present you to be pleasure and satisfaction about yourself
so that you become real beauty person. As dictionary defined, a perceptual experience of
pleasure or satisfaction comes from personal understanding mind and experiences. Even
though people suffered negative experiences such as discrimination because of abnormal
appearances, they can change it as an opportunity to realize their personal beauty.
To sum up, the point is that both inferior and exterior minds are in correlation.
People who have self-respect, confidence and love, it shows to appearance. Thus, whether
they have abnormal face or not, they have positive mind so that they treat others positively.
Grealy states that "My entire life I had been giving my negative image to people, handing it
to them and watching the negative way it was reflected back to me."p.63 It is fact that if you
treat people negatively, they also treat you negatively. Therefore, the positive mind is
important to gain the inferior beauty. Indeed, these positive mind people even though they
have abnormal faces have self-confidence, whether others look them strangely, they do not
care about others perceptions. In fact, abnormal faces people who treated badly tend to care
others perceptions so that they do more be timid. The importance is that whether you have
abnormal faces or not, the positive, pleasure and satisfaction minds lead you to be a real
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beauty person.
In addition, everyone have their own beauty in their mind. It can be their pure heart,
respectful mind, and even brief about themselves. Therefore, a beauty can be determined by
each's supervision, as public consider beauty as a luxury, pretty and handsome, each can
define their own definition of beauty in their own words. People need to be not determined a
beauty as others do. As you build your own identity, you can build your own beauty so that
you can be proud of yourself.
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Reference
-Walker, Alice. "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self." Kingsberry.
published by Harcourt Brace in 1983, reprinted by Harvest Books in 2003
-Curtin, Sharon. "Aging In The Land of The Young." (Harper's Magazine).
-Lucy Grealy, MIRRORS, published in 1994
- Edward Iwata Personal Appearance: Should I Change the Way I look
Edward Iwata