In Alice Walker’s essay, Beauty When the Other Dancer is the
Self, she presents the ideas of selfhood having to be with how you love
yourself and the people that you allow in. I agree with her ideas of selfhood
because I am a firm believer that you are happy judging by who you allow in
your life as well as the value that you hold for yourself. She begins with
focusing on her early childhood where she was always adored by the locals for
being adorable and cute. Her brothers, who she hung out with on a daily basis
because of her tomboy tendencies, were one day playing outside with their
pellet guns while she played with her bow and arrow. As Walker was outside
playing, she felt a pellet penetrate her eye from one of her brothers’ guns.
Walker recalls that day as the day that her beauty was lost. Walker stated
that,” it was great fun being cute. But then one day, it ended.” Walker isolated
herself from the world because she completely believed that she was hideous and
disfigured. As time went on, her eye developed white scar tissue that resulted
in her using six years to hide her face from the world. Years later she had
surgery to remove her cataract and allowed herself to rejoin society and date.
She met a man who later became her husband. He reassured her of her beauty and
what she has to offer the world. When she became a mother, her daughter had
asked her “mommy, where did you get that world in your eye,” which ignited the
first within Walker to show the world what she has to offer regardless if she
is disfigured .From that point forward, because she had enabled people to come
back into her life, she was able to finally love herself after the “accident”.
Honestly I have to agree with your perception of Alice Walker gives her personal view of what selfhood is by her personal encounter with the pellet shot to her eye. Even though she did shut herself from the outside world, however I felt that there would be a sense of judgment coming from the people that would mistreat her by her looks. That would be the reason why she would isolate herself because of the accident. This also caused her some type of emotional detachment knowing that there would be the judgment coming to her. However, when she did meet her husband it did give her some closure knowing that the man she married doesn’t care about her eye situation. It did also give her the opportunity to open up to people to embrace what she had been going to bother her anymore. Even with her discussion with her daughter was her turning point that she understands that her issue won’t keep her away to communicate with people again. Overall, Alice Walker overcame an obstacle that can her outside appearance, but didn’t change her self-being as a person towards the people she knows. I believe that this also an “eye opener” of how we see view our self-beings.
ReplyDeletePeople have always argued whether not people's opinion, or presence or lack of, should affect the way we see ourselves. When we look in the mirror day in and day out, we see our reflection looking back at us-- not the comments of irrelevant commentators or the faces of our friends, acquaintances, or family. We see solely ourselves, therefore our happiness should not be dependent on those outside sources. But, unfortunately, that is not the reality of this world. People allow what people say about us to penetrate our mind and affect our mentality of who we are and what we are whether it is beautiful, cute, or in unfortunate cases, a repugnant. Alice Walker, the author of Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self, said, "It was great fun being cute. But then, one day, it ended." Children are sponges; they absorb every bit of information they hear. So, when a child grows up hearing,"..."Oh, isn't she the cutest thing!" frequently float..." her way, she is going to have it driven into her mind that her appearance is who she is. She spent her life having her pride in her beauty and her ego lifted up, so when all of that ended, as Walker said, so did her pride and her beauty. The affect of hearing all of that made her beauty dependent on what others said, so naturally, she sought to find her beauty again in others such as her husband and her daughter. This is not saying that happiness is dependent on others, but in her situation it is because that is what she grew up knowing what beauty was. If she had never chosen to leave the life of recluse, she would have never known "happiness" again and would have led a miserable life absorbed by the opinions of others. So, yes, people do affect your image of self, but it shouldn't.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alice Walker’s idea of selfhood presented in her essay. In her essay, Alice describes her experiences with selfhood and how beauty is a contributing factor. As a child, Walker radiates with beauty and pride. She argued that her appearance was the cause for her being so treated so well as a child. Walker’s dad choose her to take to the fair out of her eight siblings because of her dress, she would give flawless Easter speeches because of her cuteness, and excelled in school. This however did not last very long. At a young age Walker’s eye accidently got shot out while playing with her brothers. This left a nasty scar and left her blind through one eye. Walker’s main concern was with her appearance. She feared that a scar in place of her eye would affect how others treated her. She began to do poorly in school and would always hide whenever relatives came over to visit. A few years later Walker got the scar reduced and things began to change for her. She found a boyfriend, conceived a child, did better in school, and no longer hid from society. However, she still worried about her appearance. She was offered to be in the cover of a magazine, which she was hesitant about doing. She was worried how she would look in the photoshoot and whether her eye would come out okay. It wasn’t until years later that she would finally come at peace with her appearance and selfhood. One night, her child look her in the eye and examined It carefully. Worried, Walker thought her child would be ashamed of her scar. To her surprise her child was fascinated, she found beauty in the scar. It wasn’t until then Walker came at peace with her appearance. It took Walker a while to realize that selfhood should not be influenced by appearance. This idea of selfhood that Walker presents is essential to have a positive outlook in life.
ReplyDeleteAlice Walker, author of article, Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self, presents the ideas of selfhood, she relates it to the way you accept yourself and others. I agree with her ideas of selfhood as well, because your judgment of yourself is what dictates your actions. Walker starts of speaking of her childhood, it was all aesthetic until the “accident” happened. That “accident” made a complete turn in her life. As a tomboy, she would play with her brothers and one day a pellet from their pellet guns hit her eye. This affected her eye to the point where it lost vision and grew scar tissue making it unpleasant for her to see; however, all of it was labeled as an “accident” to avoid punishments from her brothers. The beauty she used to see in herself disappeared. Her confidence disappeared. She would no longer look up until her brother took her to the hospital to fix her eye. After her eye was fixed, as in they removed the clear white scar tissue, she regained her confidence. She looked up now. She won queen. She got a boyfriend. She was valedictorian. When she became a mother, she feared her kids would question her eye. One day her daughter was watching a show and told her mom that there is a world in her eye. Since then, she regained full confidence of her beauty. Out of happiness, she dances, believes that she is beautiful and free.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and Alice Walker that other people’s opinions of us are not what is important. In Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self, Walker talks about her lifelong development of self-acceptance and highlights that it is of superior importance when paired with others’ standards of beauty. Walker understands the importance of self-love because she goes from a “cute”, confident child to a tomboy, with a seemingly final transition to an insecure woman. She loses her passion for life after an accident with her older brothers - one accidentally shoots her in the eye with a BB pellet and she loses half of her sight. The scar it leaves lowers her self-esteem to the point where she won’t even raise her head. At the end of her story, Walker has a child who looks very closely at her and because of her past, Walker grows very anxious that her daughter will also point out her mother’s flaw. Instead, her daughter notices that there is a “world” in her mother’s eye. These words made Walker realize that there was something worth loving about her flaws and reinforces her idea that self-acceptance is more important than living up to universal standards of beauty. In the very last, full sentence, Alice Walker actually calls herself beautiful - which is a far cry from her previous statements of her appearance. The idea that self-acceptance matters more than others’ opinions is extremely important and should be recognized by everyone.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the ideas of selfhood that the author Alice Walker depicts in “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”. Walker starts off the story by depicting her childhood and explaining that she got everything that she wanted, people thought of her as being cute, and in her eyes people thought of her as being perfect and not capable of doing anything wrong. Walker then moves on to write about how she was accidentally shot in the eye by her brothers’ pellet gun, leaving behind a scar in her eye. This “accident” transformed the way she looked at herself in the mirror—she lost a sense of confidence and she stated that she was picked on at school because of it. She often paid attention to what other’s said about her appearance and it destroyed her on the inside, she even started to perform poorly in school because of it.I don’t believe she thought of herself as being “normal”. After having surgery and having most of the scar removed, she talks about how her life had become better: she gained back her confidence, she became valedictorian in high school, got the boyfriend that she wanted, became homecoming queen, and became a really popular figure in school. After the accident, Walker would always ask people if she changed, because she believed that her appearance determined who she was. It wasn’t until later on in her adult life that Alice Walker realized that one’s appearance does not determine their self-hood—instead it is the experiences that one goes through.
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