Alice Walker Beauty

“Beauty: When the Dance is the Other Self” essay

In the story “Beauty: When the Dance is the Other Self”, the author, Alice Walker demonstrate to readers that Self-acceptance is greater than social conformity.To Alice Walker, the meaning of beauty is the beauty inside of you, the beauty that must be achieved by ignoring others and accepting yourself.

The term “beauty” in the story does not stands for physical appearance, but it stands for inner beauty. Alice states the fact that beauty must be achieved by ignoring others. When Alice was eight year old she got in an incident with her brother that took away her right eye’s sight. When she went to school, she got bullied by the students in school because of the scar on her eye.Therefore, she begins losing confident and failing her classes. Knowing that Alice got bullied in class, her parent decided to send her back to her old community for her own benefit; however, what does an eight years old girl could think of her parent behavior?She feels as a flaw in the eyes of her parents because of the accident and never thought that it for he own benefit. Alice life perspective changed from positive to negative after the incident with her brother and the behavior of her parents.

Later in her life, She told readers how she realize that beauty must be achieve by ignore others and the truth meaning of beauty.

She was overwhelmed by the beauty of the desert, and begin to see the beauty inside the ugly. She spent so much time in her life, worrying about what other people think. But now she realized that it does not matter what people think. After Alice got eye surgery, she was able to love herself and feels beauty again. She explains the moment that she find what is self-acceptance is. In her dream, “ As I dance, whirling and joyous, happier than I’ve ever been in my life… she is beautiful, whole, and free. She is also me” Alice’s dream illustrates her past life combined with her new life, which make a true definition for

“Beauty”.
From my past experiences, I have been in the same situation like Alice, but my situation is better than Alice. When I first arrived in the U.S. to attend school, some students bullied me because of my physical appearance. Whenever I heard them bullied me, I was really angry and just wanted to give up on everything. However, when I think about my parent, how they “sacrifice” themselves for me, how they wanted me to become useful person, everything seem to piece all together. When I attended high school, I started to understand the meaning of the term “self-acceptance”. I began to realize that I do not have to worry about what people think about me because at the end of the day, I am the only one who pays for my bills. Even if I am not good looking, I do believe that I can make money just like others and still be able to find happiness despite my appearance. Just like Alice, I have faced the same trials of accepting myself in society. No matter how appearance can affect others opinions, I still am a human being and I can do whatever others can.
I learned from the story that beauty does not stand for physical appearance, but your personality, the beauty inside of you . Beauty does not need to be tied, but to be admired by others and beauty must be achieved by ignoring others. Once you accept yourself, you will be able to find happiness