Mirror, Mirror on the Wall Don’t judge a book by its cover. Meeting someone for the first time is much different than knowing them for a while. Firstly, people tend to notice appearance before all other characteristics even become a thought. Today, appearance plays a major role in the way people perceive us. One’s image, nowadays, is becoming increasingly more important to others, rather than personality or intelligence. This may be the case because modern society is greatly influenced by one’s beauty. Style and facial structure are the first things a majority of people take note upon when encountering others. This “silent judgement” of others becomes a main factor into why people, especially women, put so much thought into their …show more content…
In her passage, “Mirrors”, Grealy discusses her struggle with appearance and beauty as a whole. Winning her battle with childhood cancer has its consequences. This aggressive cancer left her face extremely disfigured. Due to this result, many people gawked at Grealy and treated her differently than one would towards a beautiful woman. This drove her into a sense of shame and depression based on her appearance alone. Since Grealy was a young woman at the time, many cases of bullying and name calling came from grown men. At points in her life, Grealy was so embarrassed of her facial construction, that she refused to look at herself in any form of reflection. Later on in the passage, Grealy states, “To keep myself thinking objectively, I became an obsessive reader and an obsessive TV watcher…”. (38). Lucy Grealy explains that she made these mental escapes to distract herself from obsessing over her gruesome appearance. She also desired to escape from the pain she was experiencing from multiple facial surgeries, in order to make herself, too, physically beautiful. She stated, “I was given these moments of grace and insight, only to be invariably followed by a clumsy tumble into narcissism.” (37). This short passage embodies the struggles that many women come across. This is so because the iconic image of a beautiful woman is deeply engraved in our thoughts. A large portion of younger …show more content…
Throughout time, these standards have shifted. In Susan Sontag’s piece, “Women’s Beauty: Put Down or Power Source?”, she goes into depth within this topic of beauty and how ancient times differ from present day views. In this passage, Sontag discusses the views of beauty in ancient Greece. Within the first few lines of this passage, Sontag states “For the Greeks, beauty was a virtue: A kind of excellence.”…”If it did occur to the Greeks to distinguish between a person 's "inside" and "outside," they still expected that inner beauty would be matched by beauty of the other kind.” (1). In times like these, beauty was seen as something that can be on the outside, physical beauty, as well as something on the inside, intelligence or character. Society has come a long way and this ideology of beauty has changed. Nowadays, we tend to focus on the “outer” appearance of someone, and almost completely disregard their “inner” beauty. Throughout this passage, Sontag distinguishes the difference between a handsome man and a beautiful woman. She states, “For the ideal of beauty is administered as a form of self-oppression.” (6). Sontag goes on to discuss this ideology by saying “Women are taught to see their bodies in parts, and to evaluate each part separately.”…” Nothing less than perfection will do.” (6). This statement is valid for present day society. Women are expected to act and look a certain way in order to be physically
Sontag’s article, she characterizes modern society today as the correct manner for how women must be represented. There is no need to look further than the closest billboard to see today’s society’s beautiful woman with her necessary quality. The demanded characteristic of women places a disadvantage to them compared to men, who are not “graded” or treated depending on their appearances. The feature that men are evaluated on are their social aspects, which they can alter. Even though women and men cannot choose their appearances naturally, surgeries and beauty products can be used. One could think that it is the same for women and men, but that is false. As Ms. Sontag writes, “in a man’s face, lines are taken to be signs of character.” But by a woman, she writes, “every wrinkle, every line, every gray hair, is a defeat.” The norm for a woman’s appearance in today’s society is illogical and can get out of
Ronald Takaki, an Asian American academic, historian, and author, recounts the history of America through the voices of people of color in the United States in his book on the truth behind America’s racial history, entitled, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Takaki deconstructs common myths about America’s origins in his book hailed by critics and academics as a powerful and accurate retelling of the history of America. In his book, Takaki redirects the predominant focus on whites of European ancestry in history to the contributions made by the many ethnic groups of America in order to give a more accurate perspective on American history. Takaki’s point of view is well-informed and he gives a fair depiction of the participation,
know beauty in any form”(86). We are so conditioned to see female beauty as what men
There is a famous saying that states, “ we should not judge a book by its cover”, but oftentimes the first thing noticed on a person is their looks. One’s “physical beauty” strongly influences people’s first impressions of them. As a whole, we tend to assume that pretty people are more likeable and better people than those who are unattractive. Around the world, we believe that what is beautiful is good. There is a general consensus within a culture about what is considered physically appealing and beautiful. “Physical beauty” is associated with being more sociable, intelligent, and even socially skilled. Society shares this common notion of who has and who does not have “physical beauty”. Thus, “physical beauty”, as seen
Who sets the standards for beauty? What must one do to truly look beautiful? What does feeling beautiful mean? When considering the concept of beauty one must differentiate between the universal and relative perception of beauty. Among the components of universal beauty are harmony, symmetry and utility. However, perception of beauty is also relative, when it is defined by the standards of the time that are subjective to the socio economic values of the era. One of the ways these values are communicated is through images portrayed in art and in modern times through the media. ‘Fashion’ is the carrier of theses values though physical appearance and self-image that define power, rank, acceptability and belonging. Having ‘fashion’ as the medium of these relative values bring advantages and disadvantages. Although there are benefits of matching the fashion of the time, positive self-image and satisfaction with a feeling of acceptance these are temporary because fashion is ever changing. On the other hand not conforming to the contemporary standards can have a detrimental impact on self-image that leads to feeling a sense negative self worth and marginalized. Eating disorders are a powerful manifestation that fashion has on the psyche. The underlying idea of what fashion ‘is’ is value. Amongst all the change of fashion, value remains ever present.
First, Connie and her mother focused on outward beauty rather than inward beauty, which can never be tarnished. Connie’s mother was jealous of her daughter’s beauty, because she knew she could no longer attain the beauty that she once possessed. She often scolded her daughter for admiring her own beauty in order to make herself feel more secure inside. Connie did not try in the least bit to make her mother’s struggle any easier, but instead gawked at her own beauty directly in front of her mother, and often compared her own beauty to others.
In the essay “What Meets the Eye”, Daniel Akst explains scientific facts about the beauty of men and women matters to people. He argues that attractive individuals receive attention, great social status, marries, and gets paid more on a job. One can disagree with Akst’s argument because anyone with the skills and knowledge, despite the appearance, can gain a decent relationship and can get paid well. Akst looks at beauty as if it can lead individuals to an amazing and successful life, but he is wrong. Nancy Mairs’ and Alice Walker’s views on beauty are explained internally and through self-confidence. Both women’s and Akst’s arguments on beauty share some similarities and differences in many ways, and an
In her memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy tells the story of how the deformities caused by her cancer forced her into a life of isolation, cruel insults, and unhappiness. Grealy clearly demonstrates how a society that excessively emphasizes female beauty can negatively affect a young girl, especially one with a deformity. Most interpret this story as a way for Grealy to express the pain that she endured because she did not measure up to society’s definition of female beauty, a standard that forces girls into unhealthy habits, plastic surgery, and serious depression. In the afterword of the memoir, Grealy’s friend, Ann Patchett, tries to change this interpretation by saying that Grealy never meant for it to be a story of the hardships she faced as a young girl with a deformity; she simply wished it to be viewed “as a piece of literature.” (232). However, this short passage takes away from the important message that Grealy expresses in her memoir: that the unattainable standards of female beauty in society can destroy the joy and livelihood of young girls. Grealy understandably denied this as her reason for writing because, to her, admitting that the story of her life was dominated by her deformity would be like admitting that she had never lived. She frequently explains in her memoir that she longed for physical beauty so that she could finally live without isolation and dejection. To label her memoir a story of loneliness and sorrow would be admitting that she never reached this sense of beauty she so strongly desired. Despite Ann Patchett’s interpretation of the memoir, it should still be seen as a story demonstrating how society’s unreachable standards of beauty can deprecate the lives of young girls, as ...
Appearance is the way someone or something looks. Reality, on the other hand, is the state of things as they actually exist. People in society tend to confuse the two. In the Modernism period, which lasted from about the early 1900s until 1965, people focused on money, materialistic things, and whether they needed to impress a certain class of individuals or not. There are a numerous amount of stereotypical mortals in today’s society. Not knowing someone, and having the right to a first impression is acceptable, although, things may not always appear to be what they are. In the early 2000s and mainly now, appearance is a key factor in society. Everyone’s mind and time are being spent on impressing others rather than being happy with oneself and life no matter how their life is on the inside or outside.
In our everyday life, we come across a number of people, who may or may not, end up being our acquaintances. Generally, people tend to befriend those, who, in their opinion are suitable for friendship and are admirable. Often opinions are based on their looks, clothes, and body language etc., in other words their appearance. They say “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” and pretty much every time people end up doing the same. A person’s outer persona can be really deceiving but, what catches our eye first, makes a long lasting impression in our minds. It is very natural to feel comfortable with people, who appear or look good, dressed well, seem to be financially sound. It’s how our mind thinks, we believe what we see. So, opinions based on first impressions might not be entirely wrong, but can be very biased.
Plenty of conceptions of mirrors are not so different from models in middle school physics. The mirror is a line dividing the ‘real’ from the ‘virtual’, and the image is the same on both sides. It is a plane in three-dimensional space, a slash in textual space, and a boundary to fluid spaces. In physics class, rays of light go from each point of the image and bounce off the mirror in such a way that they seem to have come from the virtual object.
First impressions are powerful and can be difficult to overcome. Research shows first impressions form within a few moments of an encounter and may take many additional encounters to overcome (Tongue, 2007). Observers use many different criteria, such as personal beliefs, verbal cues, non-verbal cues, and aesthetic cues, to form first impressions. However, content has little to do with the impact of a first impression. Appearance has the most impact on a first impression. In fact, only 7% of an impression comes from the actual content of a message. Another 35% of the impression comes from the delivery of the message; tone, inflection and pitch. This leaves, a very large percentage, approximately 55%, of an impression forming based on visualization, how one appears (Jeavons, 2007). Imagine appearance being the deciding factor rather than knowledge. This is h...
In "A Woman's Beauty: Put-down or Power Source," Susan Sontag portrays how a woman's beauty has been degraded while being called beautiful and how that conceives their true identity as it seems to portray innocence and honesty while hiding the ugliness of the truth. Over the years, women have being classified as the gentler sex and regarded as the fairer gender. Sontag uses narrative structure to express the conventional attitude, which defines beauty as a concept applied today only to women and their outward appearance. She accomplishes this by using the technique of contrast to distinguish the beauty between men and women and establishing a variation in her essay, by using effective language.
Throughout history there have been many claims about what is beautiful and what is not on the face and body. America’s idea of beauty in the past changed many times from the fragileness of the Steel-engraving lady to the voluptuousness of the Greek slave. The ideal beauty in America is not so different from the ideal beauty of cultures around the world and follows many of the traditions practiced throughout history. The widespread of advertisement and technology is something that’s said to be the contributing problem to the ideal women phenomenon, but I believe history and trend plays the bigger role.
How many times have we heard or said the clique “don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” yet we focus so much of our attention on our physically appearance. Everyday we encounter images in the media that make us believe we have to look a certain way. Physical beauty is portrayed as important and essential in order to find love and acceptance. Although physical beauty is moderately important, it is less than inner beauty for it diminishes with age.