Alice Walker on Selfhood

I agree with Alice Walker’s view of selfhood. Everyone grows up with a unique appearance in addition to how they feel about it, and along with that it becomes very easy to point out flaws within oneself. Some people more than others actually pay attention to their own flaws and critique themselves heavily when in reality no one tries to look through them so deeply. There are also people who pay attention more to others’ flaws than their own. Walker experienced this as a child; they bullied her so much she moved back to her hometown. She explains her favorite brother and his wife helped her having understood her “feelings of shame and ugliness.” They took her to a hospital to get her cataracts removed. After the surgery she says to feel as if she were a different person. They still insisted that she hadn’t changed. When the accident first happened she didn’t understand why people would act as if nothing had changed. She noticed things going on around her and noticed the differences. She was not the same and no one had the guts to tell her. She remained the same girl bright and vibrant girl trapped in a body that was physically affected and that hurt her personality in many ways. Once the surgery was done she was able to go back to who she had been, and even growing up post-surgery she had made peace with the “accident” but still thought about the little “world” she had inside her eye, as her daughter had said years later. I feel people can be either of the two. Either you are very careless of what others think so much it helps you in a good way, or you can be so self-critical you trick yourself into thinking others think about you the same way.