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Alice Walker's Beauty: When The Other Dance Is The Self

478 Words2 Pages

Alice Walker the author of “Beauty: When the other Dance is the Self”, struggles with her appearance due to the traumatic experience she suffered as a child. She was shot in the eye with a copper pellet, causing her to have a glob of whitish scar tissue affecting her appearance. This traumatic incident is the beginning of a very emotional problem for Alice. She suffers from anger, shame, and lack of confidence. The purpose of “Beauty: When the other Dance is the Self” is to instruct readers with her continuous struggle of her own perception of beauty throughout her life and how she was able to overcome that and see beauty within herself. Alice is successful in achieving her purpose by showing examples how she struggled with beauty and how …show more content…

When Walker mentions a friend saying her eye was deeply suitable to her personality and even a characteristic of hers, the author shows she begins to see beauty within herself and she no longer lacks confidence. Expecting negative criticism from her daughter based on past experiences she had encountered, instead receiving a different response, Alice starts to experience a feeling she hasn’t been able to feel before for her eye- a feeling unknown too her ; Love, beauty, and acceptance. Alice is able to realize that her perception of beauty had been wrong all along. Clearly to readers, Rebecca helps her understand the actual beauty in her eyes which is compared to her own world. Now able to see beauty in her eye, Walker shows herself coming into a realization that all along she was seeing something that defined her and characterized her as something hideous when it was beauty. As we watch Walker achieve her purpose in writing about this event showing her readers how she took her daughters comment to heart and being able to see beauty and the world in her eyes. The author makes her audience understand her journey and she

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