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As people live, most of them want to be and dreaming to be a beautiful person. Each
person has different perspective of the definition of the beauty. Some guys might say ‘beautiful’
to a woman who has a fantastic appearance just like a models from the magazines. Other people
call the ‘beauty’ based on one’s charisma, attitude, purity and the kindness. The definition of
beauty can divide into two which are the inner and the outer beauty. People get confuse which
beauty they should believe in and which beauty is better than others. People get hurt a lot if
somebody judge on one’s beauty because beauty is very important concept between people’s life.
Beauty can be very big concept towards people which can lead one’s emotional into sadness or
happiness. Somebody’s comment or judge towards one’s beauty (either inner or outer), it can
control that one’s life enormously. People can lose the confident, personality, friends and their
identity but as most of people grow up, they get to have wisdom to learn that outer beauty is not
everything.
There are a lot of people who got hurt because of their outer appearance. Without
knowing which beauty, inner or outer, is important people tend to give harshness to people who
has physically disfigured appearance. Regardless of the gender, beauty is very sensitive so they
get to have a hard time through their lives by living with disfigurement. The story Mirror by
Lucy Grealy had a tough life time until she became an adult. She had a cancer on her left side of
jaw when she was child and she had a ‘disfigured’ face according to her. She loses her identity
and confidence to survive this world among her normal friends and her non-identical twin.
There’s other similar story called When the Other Dancer Is the Self by Alice Walker who had a
accident that made her left eye loses her sight which looked abnormal also when she was a child.
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She was scared to live her like with disfigured eye she worried about her outer beauty more than
her inner beauty. Later on, when she became an adult, she found out that outer beauty wasn’t
everything.
It is right that appearance can change one’s life and the personality because lack of
confidence. When people lose the confidence on their appearance beauty, most of people tend to
act unnoticeably because they don’t want people’s big attention. They constantly think how they
look and make a conclusion that other people’s thoughts towards themselves. They try to hide
their part where they think not beautiful which this act can lead into abnormal that become lonely.
Walker became a lonely girl when she had disfigured eye after the accident. She was a
very active girl who liked to do the speech in front of the church people on Easter because she
wanted to show off her cuteness and her smartness to many people. She already knew that she
would be the one who would go to the fair with her daddy because she was the prettiest in her
family. Unfortunately, after the terrible accident she explains her feeling as “…they will stare
back. Not at the “cute” little girl, but at her scar. For six years I do not stare at anyone, because I
do not raise my head” (Walker 72). The girl who stood up in front of a lot people giving
speeches to them drastically changed after the accident. She never wanted to raise her head up
because she lost her confident. She hated how she looked like and it’s losing the identity if one’s
hate one’s self. Without eye contacting with each other, it’s hard to build the relationship even
with an employee and the customer. She lived almost without an eye contact and became
negative towards the world how people are acting against her appearance. Her life turned into
darkness instead of brightness after the accident. She became lonely when people were around
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her when she was a child. Not all the time, but in some cases, the appearance can definitely
change one’s life into positive or negative way. It’s hard to ignore that outer appearance because
people get change a lot by their looks.
Judging on somebody’s appearance might control the life of one’s. Peer is very important
during people’s lifetime because that’s where we get hurt and sometimes encourage from.
Especially when the person is the one who we really love, it’s more effective because we care
and respect that person’s mind a lot. We tend to trust even strongly that sometimes that person’s
comment can lead us to hell or to the heaven. Walker, she was still angry because of
dissatisfaction of her abnormal eye even the scar got much better after the surgery. After the
surgery she made a boyfriend who she dreamed of, made a lot of friends after raising her head up,
got married and had a 2 years old daughter. This 2 years old daughter made Walker to believe
that her eye isn’t shameful but actually beautiful.
Walker’s most afraid part was that the most loving daughter, Rebecca, might be
embarrassed her own mother’s disfigured eye. This was the most frighten thing that she worried
about what if her daughter would act in negative way like other’s did when she was a child.
Fortunately, Rebecca liked her eye that she said she sees the world in her mother’s eye. Rebecca
indicates the world that she seen in the television program for the babies. Babies program shows
only pretty visuals and Rebecca matched that visual with her mom’s scar on her eye. Walker was
filled with happy instead of anger that she expressed her feelings at that moment as “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” (Walker 74). She loves her eye. Her attitude towards her scar on her left eye
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totally changed after the daughter’s comment on it. Her daughter was very smart enough to know
that outer appearance is not everything. Rebecca did not feel embarrassed and Walker finally
knew that it shouldn’t be thing to be embarrassed to hide away from people’s sight. Now she can
love her eye. Not just that but even the shame, anger and the inner vision, she could love. Even
her other families were keep saying ‘you did not change’ she wouldn’t listen to them at all.
When her, the most loved one, Rebecca let her know that she’s not disfigured, she was in the
heaven. The peer’s comment is very important and shouldn’t say without thinking of one’s
appearance it control’s one’s emotional and the value of one’s life heavily.
As people grow up we gain the wisdom that the outer beauty is not everything when to
judge people but inner beauty is very important also. When we are little, we tend to pay more
attention on outer beauty to look better than others. People who are immature, not to think of the
inner beauty yet get stress out a lot whether if they are worth to hear ‘you’re beautiful’. Most of
people solve this problem as they get mature to think that inner beauty is maybe the most
important definition of beauty and find themselves acting differently inside and outside. Some
people get frightened after find out how people are trying to follow other’s appearance, not being
themselves.
Ever since Grealy got a surgery to remove the cancer on her left side of jaw, she hated
her appearance and was eager to change it. She felt like she had no identity and even her soul do
not exist. After she got a tissue expander operation, her appearance got much better that it should
have satisfies her in the result but ironically it did not. She states her feelings as “… I had to
admit I looked better. But I didn’t look like me. Something was wrong…. My own image was
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the image of a stranger, and rather than try to understand this, I simply ignored it”(Grealy 62).
She ignored how she looked like in the mirror of herself after tissue expander operation and
stopped looking into the mirror to see how she looks like. She was disappointed because that was
not what she expected to look like after the operation. She was disappointed not because she
didn’t turn into a doll’s face but her face did not look like who she is from her inside. She was
surprised to see her changed face and could not accept. At this point of time, she figured that the
outer appearance don’t matter to live the life. She strongly believed on her own philosophy of
her life and she had a confident with her inner beauty. As she got immature, she found out that
outer beauty is useless and it’s not right to judge people by just looking at the outer appearance.
Grealy’s face had changed, but nothing had changed her inner heart of beauty. She was still a
same person but only her face was changed.
These two authors, Grealy and Walker, went through physical and emotional
transformation ever since when they were a child. They went through their teenagers’ period to
an adult and fight with the stereotype that they are disfigured which they need to hide it from
other people’s sight. They were outsiders when they were young because they act differently
others by having disfigured body parts which lead to lose their identity, soul and sometimes
dreams. Fortunately, as they grow up, they know that outer beauty is not everything to judge
one’s life and the personality. People learn that peer’s comment is also very important on one’s
beauty because beauty is big worth of concept that can change people’s life. It’s hard to say
which beauty is the best description of the ‘beauty’ really, because it’s all different on other
perspective and what their topic is about. If we are talking about the value of people, the inner
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beauty might be able to be the real definition of ‘beauty’ which won’t matter whether how they
look like.
Work Cited
Grealy, Lucy.s. Print
Walker, Alice. When the Other Dancer Is the Self. Print.