“Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self,” by Alice Walker, expresses how the meaning of beauty is formed based on how we view it. Walker claims that the meaning of beauty is crafted by our experiences through life. The meaning of beauty can change for each person which is why I agree with her, but I would like to peer deeper at how society develops the meaning of beauty. For many the meaning of beauty equals something that is flawless. How does this effect the way we look at ourselves and others? What is the price we pay for beauty? Walker states that, “It was great fun being cute, but then one day, it ended.” There is a time when cute no longer applies in describing someone and this is also around the time one faces the word beauty. If …show more content…
Wanting to be beautiful instead of the ability to see. Why would a young girl feel that beauty was more important than sight? The time period in which this Walker lived as a child wasn’t as filled with suggestion of beauty, yet it was still important. This is a problem that has transcended time and has been written alongside our history books. Her words, I might have missed seeing the desert. Translate to, I might have missed seeing the world. What are we really looking for when we go in search of beauty? Is this search blinding us from finding beauty? It nice to be able to see the beauty around us, but sometimes it’s not as simple as looking. The beauty that radiates from within can over shadow beauty only found grazing the surface. The shallow meaning of beauty that I covered earlier can be changed. Most of the time all it takes is the words or actions of another to point out the beauty we overlooked within ourselves. Unfortunately, it is easier to see the beautiful qualities in others, yet difficult to see them in ourselves. “Mommy, there’s a world in your eye.” Walker’s three year old daughter, Rebecca’s words made the most impact to her. Telling someone they are beautiful can have a powerful impact, why? Because it allows us to question the beauty we are told to embrace and allows us to fall in love with our own individualized beauty. There is a lot we can chance to allow the word beauty to mean something greater than flawless. If we can bring attention to the beauty we can see in others, they can show the beauty that we missed in