What would you do if you grew up with half your jaw missing? In Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy lost half of her jaw and face due to an aggressive form of cancer in her jaw. She grew up with an identical twin sister who looked “normal”, a mother who always believed that she had to be strong never weak, lost her father and loved to work with horses. She had multiple surgeries that never seemed to work and just caused more operations and was insulted in public because of her looks. Lucy went through a lot of personal issues but I think the main challenges Lucy faced were grounded in her emotional being because she isn’t well supported by her family, she has very little to no self-confidence, and she doesn’t know how to deal with what she’s going through. …show more content…
“He meant well, but his dismissal of the problem confirmed my mother’s belief that she was the only one in the family who faced the facts.” (19) She explains that she knows her dad meant to help by dismissing the issue but actually made it worse making her mother believe she was faking which shows how skeptical her mother is of her.“I allowed people to believe speaking was difficult, though my mother knew better and kept at me constantly.” (60) When Lucy says her mother knew better shes stating how her mom always saw through her stories and never believed anything so she kept bugging her to speak because she knew she could. “She went on to explain how disappointed she was that I’d cried even before Br. Woolf had put the needle into me;” (78) Lucy’s mother once again states how disappointed in her for showing weakness in something that she believes was nothing but Lucy thinks was perfectly