Alice Walker's Beauty: When The Other Dancer Is The Self

Alice Walker’s story “Beauty: When The Other Dancer Is The Self” is a personal narrative telling about her life from the time she was two and half until she was a mother at the age of twenty-seven. She tells about being the favorite, most loved, pretty little girl at the age of two and then changing into a tomboy at the age of eight. When she was eight years old she was out playing with her older brothers, and then something happened that changed her entire perspective in life. One of her brothers shot her right in the eye with one of their BB guns. Walker goes from being a confident child to a self-conscious and little girl. Throughout the next twenty or so years she tells about why she feels she has changed until one day, at the age of twenty seven, she realizes that she loves her eye and it is nothing to be ashamed of; it is a part of her and that is never going to change. Throughout this story Walker does an amazing job of using imagery to create the story in the reader’s mind, repetition to put emphasis on important points, using narration to hook the reader into the story and make them feel as if they are a part

of Walker’s life, and appealing to the reader’s heart and emotions as she shares a part of her life with them.
Walker begins her story by sharing an experience that she remembers from when she was two and a half years old. Alice tells about how her father is “trying to decide which of his eight children he will take with him to the county fair” (34). She knows that her father absolutely adores her and that he will pick her to go with him; and she is right. Walker states, “Whirling happily in my starchy frock, showing off my biscuit-polished patent-leather shoes and lavender socks, tossing my head in a way that makes my ribbons bounce, I stand, hands on hips, before my father. ‘Take me, Daddy,’... ‘I’m the prettiest!’” (34). Walker does a fine job of creating a picture of this scene in the reader's head. Readers can clearly see in their mind a little two year old girl spinning and begging her father to take her along with him to the county fair. Another example where she uses imagery is when she tells of the life-changing event that was mentioned previously. She leads with, “I am eight years old and a tomboy. I have a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, checkered shirt and pants, all red” (35). Walker then continues to tell the story, but readers can see her as a tomboy getting dirty and playing with her older brothers outside and having fun. Imagery is a great strategy for writers to use because it involves the audience and invites them to close their eyes and imagine what is going on in a story. Walker uses imagery in an exceptionally effective way that makes reading her stories truly enjoyable.
Alice makes it a major point that in her life she feels after the incident that she has changed.

Several times in her essay she tells of how different she feels after she is shot in the eye but time after time she is told “You did not change” (37). This is a big deal to Walker because she knows for a fact that she is not the same little girl that she used to be and she is “eight, and for the first time, doing poorly in school, where [she has] been something of a whiz since [she] was four” (36). It is like her life has been completely turned upside down and nothing it going the way that it should be. Repeating the line “You did not change” over and over in Walker’s story shows how much this line meant to her growing up and how much it still means to her now. In the same manner that this line effects Alice, it now has a similar effect on her

reader’s.
Walker’s choice of narration has an enormous effect on the way she portrays her story. She uses first person throughout the entire story, even though she is telling of past events in chronological order. At first this may seem odd, but it is actually highly effective. Keeping the story in the first person helps the story flow better because it makes the reader feel as if the events are happening in that exact moment. This strategy, along with imagery, helps the story come across as if it is happening right before the reader’s eyes.
Alice Walker uses pathos to appeal to her audience. She does this by appealing to the emotional and sympathetic side of them. Walker bases her entire story off of one event that happened in her life; getting shot in the eye by a BB gun. She explains why this specific event changed her life and shares the effect it had on her from then on. It is easy for her to connect with her readers because after reading this story it is natural for others to think of a similar event that has personally happened in their life. Readers can relate to her because they can more easily understand the hardships that she went through and it builds a special and emotional bond between the writer and the reader.
Overall, Walker does a great job of using rhetorical devices in her writing and using them to her advantage. She uses imagery to paint a picture in the reader's mind, repetition to show the importance of certain words, the first person to make it easier to follow along with the story, really focuses on connecting with her readers on an emotional level. It cannot be easy to share such a personal and life-changing experience through a piece of writing but Walker does an admirable job of sharing with her readers such a huge part of her life.