Stella Xie
April 4th, 2012
Assignment #10
An Excellent Essay
“The Mysterious Misery” which wrote by Aliona Reselian is one of the most
extraordinary academic essays among other students. However, I was totally fascinated
by this one because of the title, the organization and the ideas. Her every sentence is
meaningful and powerful. At first, I was interested in her title because it was so different
from others which is included the word “beauty”. That makes people have sense to know
what the main topic is, but her title inspires my curious about what misery is, and why the
misery is mysterious. These questions encourage me to read through her paper and find
the answers. As a writer, she successfully grabbed readers’ first sights.
Through her whole paper, she was trying to prove that people should not be
influenced by the society to change the way they think of themselves. However, finding
true beauty is the way people think of themselves. And then the self-confidence, the selfacceptance and the self-esteem are three elements of true beauty and help people to insist
the way they think of themselves but not affected by magazines, television
advertisements and plastic surgeries. She gave many examples on the magazines,
television advertisements and plastic surgeries to show how deeply that people’s thoughts
are controlled and occupied by these things. They mislead people to create an unnatural
“beauty”. And also they obstruct them to be unique. The visions by the other people are
not important, but how people think of themselves is most essential. People first have to
learn how to believe themselves, love themselves and respect themselves. Then they have
their sovereignties to define the beauty which only belongs to them but not given by the
magazines, television advertisements and plastic surgeons.
Although she didn’t use some transition words to connect each paragraphs, she
used related sentences to make paragraphs connected fluently. For example, the last
sentence of second paragraph said “The person won’t be able to live a happy satisfying
life without getting over his/her flaws” (2). And the first sentence of the third paragraph
“It is hard for a person to accept his/her looks and body flaws, but no one is born perfect.
They need to understand what kind of flaws and weakness they have.”(2) These two
sentences are closely linked by people should overcome their flaws.
She blended two quotes in a fluent way. The quotes are connected to her ideas and
take back to her main arguments. For example, she mentioned that people found their
beauty and acceptance in the magazines, the plastic surgeries, and television
advertisements. Then she gave the quote from “Race without Face” which wrote by
Edward Iwata. “For myself, and eye and nose job-or blepharoplasty and rhinoplasty in
surgeons’ tongue- would bring me the gift of acceptance. The flick of a scalpel would
buy me respect.”(17) She stated that a surgery cannot buy the respect and the acceptance
of the society, until people learn to accept themselves. So before people found beauty in
magazines, and television ads and plastic surgeries, they have to be confidence, be
acceptable and be respectable for their own beauty.
The introduction and the conclusion both state her position. At the beginning, she
used some hooks to attract readers. She gave her opinions in religion way. I have to check
the organization from my essay and also use more examples to prove my position.
Thanks a lot for her excellent writing. It lets me enjoy a lot and learn how to write a good
essay.