Eandra Adkins
Juniors English, 2A
Extended Definition Essay
October 9, 2011
Beauty Is But a Word
Beauty and the beast is an old classic that is very popular and romantic. This beautiful
woman falls for a “beast” and he transforms into a prince at the end once they fall madly in love
and singing do-dads give her a jolly good showing. My question is: Who cares? This doesn’t
happen in real life. If a beautiful girl was faced with a hairy monster with a temper, she’d leave
him for this Gaston fellow with a hot body and a cute face, not caring if he was arrogant because,
well, he’s cute. Then later on the village would come to the beast’s house and he’d be burned at
the stake for being so horribly grotesque. Truth is, beauty IS a beast.
Natural beauty is spectacular in every way, and leaves those who view it in awe. When
you’re on a beach, watching the sun rest its weary head, dipping below the horizon, it illuminates
the sky with a rich essence. The ocean lights up and dances curiously while softly beckoning to
you to come play a game and dance with it on the water’s edge. Natural beauty as this can be
portrayed in almost any place or living creature, but is hard to find in modern day society. It’s
not easy, but I have managed to find some people who I thought were beautiful, but if placed in
front of a judge and asked to be rated on a scale of 1 to 10 compared to the hot blond girl down
the block, their chances of exceeding her rating would be minimal in other’s eyes, because
nobody gives a damn about your inner beauty.
Although we wish it was, beauty is not just the outside appearance. It is, in fact, a very
small portion of the matter. Beauty is of your heart, your mind, and in all cases, your soul. Of
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course most don’t see it this way, but those who aren’t blinded by arrogance can see it like this.
Beauty in literal terms means “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives
pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.” So in other words, beautiful
people are pleasurable to be around. This is so untrue of some who are perceived as beautiful.
They can be brutally vicious with words and actions, but their faces look so lovely and it’s a
false impression. Beauty isn’t portrayed the way it should be in human beings. If you saw
somebody pass by and never even learned their name or what kind of a person they were, you
would assume they were beautiful. Only they know what is inside the darkest areas of their
hearts and only they can interpret that appropriately into actions and words. They may have a
beautiful face but their lack of ability to stay humble is what makes them so treacherous. Even
more so when “beautiful” people assume they have the right to call others that word that is so
dreaded by the majority of the population.
Being called ugly is a strike to anybody’s self-confidence, and makes your heart sink to
the soles of your shoes; it’s an all-time low that tears you apart. It’s so much easier to be ugly
than it is to be beautiful, but a large quantity of people attempt at perfecting themselves every
day, or at least every once and a while. Gallons of makeup, hair extensions and cuts, razors,
tweezers, dye, sun tanning, all of these things can help enhance outer beauty, but not inner. Some
of those brave people in the world “accept” the fact that they’re “ugly”, and they let everybody’s
torturous words come at them like knives, but in reality they are more beautiful than any foul
being who would ever claim to be better in the first place. When you lower somebody’s selfesteem, you get uglier and uglier each time. You become a walking contradiction, because you
are intolerable to those who used to envy you, and you become the ugliest form of human being.
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Romeo and Juliet is a play about love, not beauty, but still has some significance in this
matter. “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;”
Why can’t those who look at beauty as just on the outside take these words into consideration? A
woman who is beautiful on the outside and not known for who she is as a person could be the life
of the party, everybody would love her, and she would be irresistible. If she got in an accident
that completely mutilated her face and body, she would not “smell just as sweet.” She would no
longer be a rose, but a measly weed. Without her beauty to fuel her, her true self could shine
through and nobody would have any purpose to be interested anymore, because let’s face it;
without her looks, she would be nothing to the men who once perused her. This sounds very
unpleasant, but it’s more true than anything else. She would have only her family and friends
left, the ones who never saw as just a pretty face, but the woman with a beautiful heart.
Beauty is something that is natural. It can’t be forced, nor can it be forged. The most
beautiful things in life are simple, as it seems, and they are things that should be cherished and
loved for the way they were born and created. These things aren’t chemically processed,
plucked, or altered in a way so that they are completely unrecognizable. Being beautiful isn’t just
your face or your body. Your soul can make you the most beautiful being alive, or a sour and
demonic being in the form of a human. Everybody has one feature or another that is beautiful
about them, but if you try too hard to force it to shine, your own being as a whole will become
dull and diluted. You could have beautiful eyes, a beautiful smile, beautiful hair, or beautiful
something or other, but just be careful not to overlook who is truly beautiful at heart, because
they are the ones that you need to hold onto.
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Works Cited
Web. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beauty?show=0&t=1318887633>.
Web. <http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/305250.html>