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Lucy Grealy Autobiography Of A Face Analysis

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In 1994, Lucy Grealy wrote a memoir called Autobiography of a Face. It is about her childhood struggles dealing with cancer in her jaw that haunted her most of her entire life. Lucy Grealy is a tomboy but was not so great at organized sports. She suffered a minor injury while playing dodgeball, it became the first sign that something could be wrong with her. Grealy was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ewing Sarcoma at age nine. It was only five percent survival rate. Five years of her childhood she went to chemotherapy to be treated for cancer. It was time for Lucy Grealy to undergo surgery, but she was not ready for what was coming. The left side of her face becomes disfigured. The next fifteen year she saw herself different from everyone else and not in a good way. Every day she found something new about her appearance that disgusted her which seemed to be the greatest tragedy she has faced, and cancer seemed to be a minor comparison. Cancer seemed to be a ticket for empathy of kindness towards her and having a disfigured face seemed to be a ticket to avoid her, how …show more content…

I shook with heaves so strong they felt more like convulsions (pg. 76)”. She wanted to be free from her face not only be accepted but feel better about herself. Lucy has been living a life that she never wanted in the first place and gave her a set-back in reality. The main reason why this is so stronger is that I believe that no one could ever fill in her place; she was meant for that suffering to happen to her because it was her story share and no one else could have done it better. As a young teenager in high school my insecurities grow each day. Her words made me realize that we all have insecurities even more than others, but we still deserve to be love and treated equal even if we do not deserve at

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