Analysis Of Autobiography Of A Face By Lucy Grealy

Autobiography of a Face is a memoir written by Lucy Grealy about her childhood and brave battle with cancer. When she was nine years old, Grealy was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, in her jaw. Because of the cancer, a portion of her job needed to be removed, leaving her face disfigured. Autobiography of a Face tells of her experiences, emotions, and thoughts while battling her illness. While reading the first few chapters, one paragraph that stood out to me was on page 29, the first paragraph of the chapter “Petting Zoo.” The paragraph begins with Grealy telling about a little boy, only about two years younger than her, hiding under her bed in the hospital and his father and doctor trying to coax him out from underneath.

This was from the mind of young Grealy, the girl who had a depressed and angry mother, the mother that taught her that it was never okay to show weakness or cry (Grealy 30). Young Grealy believed that the way she earned acceptance during her first visit to the ER could carry over into her home life. I think that this moment encompassed all that Grealy was feeling at this time. The feeling that she was responsible for her mother’s unhappiness and depression, the feeling that if she showed she was not afraid, no one else in her family would be either, and the feeling that if she was not brave, her family would be unhappy forever. This was important because she felt that she had discovered a way to make her family whole again.
I believe that this paragraph is very important to the memoir because it showed how young Grealy viewed others who did not seem as brave as her. She looked down on those who cried and showed fear because she was taught that showing these emotions was frowned upon. It also was important because it described a little bit why Grealy thought she always had to be brave. She thought that if she was not brave, she would not be able to save her family, and all the unhappiness in her life would be her