I agree with Alice Walker’s ideas regarding selfhood, Appearance
is a big part of our Self-esteem, because it gives us assurance and confidence to
which of these incorporate into our personalities even at an early age. In her
essay she talks about several scenarios in which being pretty got her what she wanted,
but as human beings we’re exposed to situations where our selfhood is put into
risk rather it’s an accident that changes us physically to any type of life scenario
that affects us mentally. When Alice Walker goes blind it changes her whole
perception on how she views life, as though it where a whole different person.
She feels as though she lost her personality, so much that she repeatedly
questions herself and accepts the fact that she has changed. She goes from a
little girl who praised her appearance to a woman who faces rejection which
leads her to have a negative destructive perception of herself. Her despise
towards her scar leads her to the point that she prayed at night for her beauty
rather than her eyesight. We can easily distinguish the importance of her selfhood with, the
fact that she chooses image over the possibility of gaining sight back. The moment
she goes through surgery she describes how good she felt and how she regained
her self-esteem. I believe Walker shared this experience to prove that
sometimes society’s interpretation of “beauty” can change the perception we
carry within ourselves and it can affect us negatively trying to live up to the
expectations of those around us to avoid criticism and “fit in”. We fail to realize
that beauty is not on the outside but within ourselves. The fact that Walker is
able to find peace with her scar demonstrates her true discovery of self-worthiness
and self-acceptance to who she is, and how by nature we are all flawed it’s
just that we need to find our inner self to make peace with are flaws and be
happy.
I agree with you Alexia. Alice Walker, author of Beauty: When the Other Dancer is Self, begins her short essay by sharing with us what she experienced as a young girl. As you mentioned, she talks about being cute, pretty and how she felt as if she had the world in her hands. Her self-esteem was so high until one day there was an accident in which she lost sight through her right eye. Throughout her life she was bullied by others and most importantly by her own self. She had not only lost her eyesight through her right eye but her confidence as well. She didn’t consider herself to be the same person as before or even somebody who was categorized as someone who had “beauty”. In her essay she admits how she use to speak badly about herself in front of the mirror, also questioning whether or not she was the same person. Walker’s ideas at the end about herself demonstrate how for years of her life she looked down upon herself, but no matter what she will still be the same person even if she had to confirm it with other loved ones. Unfortunately, you cannot control what happens to you but you get to control how it affects you. And once you do go through this, you will discover who you truly were or are. For Alice Walker, she remembers being beautiful as a young child and later as a woman she redefines that beauty by accepting the fact that she will always be the same beautiful person no matter what.
ReplyDeleteAlexia, I love the way you summarized everything up.
ReplyDeleteIn Alice Walker's essay she starts out by telling us about the happier days she remembers in her childhood. She tells a story of her family going to a fair and her feeling "the prettiest". This exemplifies her days of feeling carefree, and shows contrast to how she felt after her "accident". After her accident took place, and she began to bullied in school, it seems to me, just about everything that possibly could wrong in her life, was. It was like the "cute little girl" before the accident was a completely different person with a different outlook on life, than the person she turned into after it. Even her perspective on the school she was at, saying "after months of torture at the school, my parents decided to send me back to our old community". Her accident caused her so much emotional trauma that she had a very hard time looking at anything in a positive way. This all ties in to her idea of selfhood at the end when she tells us the story of her daughter looking at her scar and telling her that she "has a world in her eye". No matter what trauma her scar caused her emotionally it was ultimately all in her head, and for her to move forward with her life she had to accept that it was part of her.