Uglies by Scott Westerfield is a dystopia in which Westerfield tries to bring attention to the major issues in our society today. One is our fixation on perfection in appearance that could lead to the loss of individuality, the second being our ignorance towards science and the harmful effects we have on the world.
Societies beauty standards and obsession with perfection must change or we will all lose our identity and uniqueness. In this scene, Tally and Shay are at the Ruins and Shay explains to Tally how their society is brainwashing everyone into believing a certain beauty standard, since there is nothing natural about what they perceive as beautiful. “But it’s a trick, Tally. You’ve only seen pretty faces our whole life. Your parents, your teachers, everyone over sixteen.
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In this scene, Tally finally arrives at the Smoke and is shocked to discover that they live like Rusties knowing that Rusties hurt the earth. “Then she saw the stumps at the edge of the settlement, and gasped. ‘Trees…, she whispered in horror, ‘You cut down trees.’” (Uglies pg.187) Westerfield is warning us to stop deforestation and not take trees for granted because as it shows in the text Tally reacts as if the Smoke was murdering a human, so Tally values a tree as another precious life which we should do. In this scene, Tally is riding over the Ruins and remarking in disbelief of how the Rusties lived. “You almost couldn’t believe people lived like this, burning trees to clear land, burning oil for heat and power, setting the atmosphere on fir with their weapons.” (Uglies pg.60) Westerfield is trying to tell us that we are too careless with our one Earth by showing us as Rusties in Tally’s society, which constantly uses us as a warning and lesson of how ignorance can be the most dangerous thing.
Scott Westerfield’s commentary on our society is that we must change and finally realize our