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In a world where everyone aims to be gorgeous, what could go wrong? Tally Youngblood can’t wait for her 16th birthday. Not for anything else, but to become pretty. Each person gets a surgery to fit into the pretty world standards. In this society, normal is ugly.
Tally Youngblood has to wait three more months to get her perfecting surgery. After playing a trick, as a common ugly, Tally meets Shay, a rebellious girl. They become close friends and discover that they are turning pretty on the same day. However, as the surgery day comes closer, Shay hints that she doesn’t want to turn pretty. Shay shows Tally the downsides of being pretty and introduces an outside wilderness to her, hoping they could escape together. Shay has Tally promise
Many factors contribute to the main storyline of Pretties by Scott Westerfeld. So far, Tally has attended a costume party with her best friends, received a large gash in her forehead after escaping from the party, and swallowed a white pill from a mysterious leather sack. The party and pill will be discussed and elaborated upon throughout this essay. The three most important objects in the story so far are Zane (Tally’s man friend), Champagne, and the key to open the lock on dorm room Valentino 317. One person who is crucial to the plot of the story so far is Zane.
This month I read the book Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. This science fiction novel is about a girl named Tally Youngblood who is about to turn sixteen. In Tally’s world, turning sixteen means undergoing an extreme plastic surgery to become what her society thinks is a “pretty”. When Tally’s friend, Shay, runs away to a land where “uglies” are accepted, Tally has a big decision to make, become a pretty or be accepted for who she is.
In “Uglies” by Scott Westfield the method the government use to strive for a perfect society is by giving everyone who is 16 or older surgery that turn them pretty because they felt that most people tend to be insecure about their appearance when they become a teenager or older . So to get rid
Following Joan Jacobs Brumberg throughout her conveying research of adolescents turning their bodies into projects the reader is able to see where all of the external beauty fascination came from following up to the 21st century. Brumberg effectively proves her point, and any girl of today’s age knows the struggle of which she continuously portrays throughout her book. Beauty has become such a preoccupation that it has gone from soap and washcloths, to makeup, to cosmetic reconstruction of body parts.
In the Uglies, being a pretty is the one thing everyone can’t wait to be. If you’re not a pretty, you’re pretty much thought of as useless until you turn 16 and get to have the long awaited surgery that transforms your face into something completely new and better. It is nearly impossible for Uglies to not want to look pretty. Even if one was to hate another, they would still want to look and be like them if they had big eyes or full lips. The text says, “There was a certain kind of beauty, a prettiness that everyone could see. Big eyes and full lips like a kid's; smooth, clear skin; symmetrical features; and a thousand other little clues. Somewhere in the backs of their minds, people were always looking for these markers. No one could help seeing them, no matter how they were brought up. A million years of evolution had made it part of the human brain” (Westerfeld 19). In other words, Tally is saying that it is part of their biology to want to be pretty. There is almost no freedom in Tally’s world and the only way to be accepted is to undergo the surgery and look like everyone else. The author is showing today's generation that this will be the future if teenagers keep idolizing and doing the same things as celebrities. Teenagers see someone they idolize with big lips and go get lip injections or see someone with long eyelashes and get eyelash extensions instead of just embracing how they
In this society everyone is obsessed with beauty. And the Uglies are the people between the ages of 12 and 16 they live in a remote community far from the beautiful people. In this community the Uglies anxiously wait for their 16th birthday. At the age of 16 they go through a mandatory plastic surgery in order to live up to society’s standards. After they go through plastic surgery they will be known as pretties, and they will also live with all of the other gorgeous people.
Societal constructs of bodily perfection have a massive influence on both genders and on all ages. If you look at any magazine, you will see women constantly being compared to each other, whether it is in the “who wore it better” section or in the “do’s and don’ts” part of the magazine, comparing body images and overall appearances. All parts of the media that encompasses our daily lives are especially dangerous for young and impressionable teens because they see people being torn down for trying to express themselves, and are thus taught to not only don’t look like “don’ts”, but also look like the “do’s”. This is dangerous in that women in the magazine set very high standards that teens want to emulate, no matter the cost to themselves or their health. Celebrities have the benefit of media to make them appear perfect: Photoshop and makeup artists conceal the imperfections that are often too apparent to the naked eye. Viewing celebrities as exhibiting the ideal look or as idols will, in most cases, only damage the confidence of both young teens, and adults, and warp the reality of what true “beauty” really is. It makes teens never feel truly content with themselves because they will be aiming for an ideal that is physically impossible to attain and one that doesn’t exist in the real
In today society, beauty in a woman seems to be the measured of her size, or the structure of her nose and lips. Plastic surgery has become a popular procedure for people, mostly for women, to fit in social class, race, or beauty. Most women are insecure about their body or face, wondering if they are perfect enough for the society to call the beautiful; this is when cosmetic surgery comes in. To fix what “needed” to be fixed. To begin with, there is no point in cutting your face or your body to add or remove something most people call ugly. “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery” explored the desire of human to become beyond perfection by the undergoing plastic surgery. The author, Camille Pagalia, took a look how now days how Americans are so obsessed
Women are told that in order to get anywhere in life they must constantly worry about their outer appearance. In Jennifer Weiner’s article, “When Can Women Stop Trying to Look Perfect?” she delves deeply into how today’s society women’s worth is based on how they look. Weiner believes that women who do not meet the standards of beauty do not have as many opportunities.
Young Goodman Brown undergoes the hero’s journey in the story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The hero’s journey is a common guideline of events that many writers use in stories to show the physical, mental, and/or emotional transformation the main character or protagonist undergoes throughout the story. It starts with a call to adventure and a supernatural aid. It is then followed by a road of trials and a symbolic death. In the end, the character has a moment of epiphany or realization and then a return. Hawthorne uses all of these in order to show the loss of innocence in Young Goodman Brown as he experiences the hero’s journey.
In the story "Young Goodman Brown", Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a dream to illustrate a young man’s loss of innocence, understanding of religion and his community. Through this dream, the main character Young Goodman realizes that the people that he surrounds himself with are not who he believes them to be. The story of “Young Goodman Brown” focuses on the unconscious mind. The characters in this short-story are able to represent the struggle of Young Goodman’s superego, ego, and id.
Society manifests its obsession with physical perfection by having surgical procedures done on daily basis. These surgeries allow for almost any cosmetic transformation. For example a person can have anything from removing a birthmark to inserting breast implants to having a tummy tuck done on their body. Society manifests their obsession with physical perfection by having these procedures done to them. These procedures enable society to achieve 'perfection';, much like Georgiana in the 'Birthmark';.
Because young girls and women around the world are beginning to alter themselves to fit a certain mold, people are starting to realize that a pretty face and one’s youth is a factor that has been hurting the world for many years. So much so that a person is willing to kill to obtain beauty. This is truly and amazing yet sickening fact and the more we emphasize on one’s appearance the more catastrophes like this will happen.
The media has had an increasingly destructive effect on young people who are becoming worryingly obsessed with their body image. The media is saturated in sexual imagery in which young people have to face every day. The sheer volume of sexual imagery in the media today has resulted in the vast majority of young people to become hooked on looking as near to perfection everyday by using the latest products and buying the latest fashions. This used to be enough but lately the next step to achieving perfection is cosmetic surgery. Everyone wants to look attractive, especially teenagers who are not only put under massive strain to succeed but to look beautiful and climb the ranks of the social ladder, and it seems that the only way to achieve the much desired beauty is to turn to drastic measures.
In American culture today, society's view of beauty is controlled by Hollywood, where celebrities are constantly in the lime-light. The media watches Hollywood's every move, and is quick to ridicule “A-listers” whenever they dare to gain a few pounds or to let an uncontrollable pimple show. The media has created a grossly distorted mental image of what should be considered beautiful, and with almost every junior high and high school-age girl reading and viewing this message, the idea has been instilled in them as well. This view of beauty is causing many teenage girls to become obsessed with a highly problematic and unattainable goal of perfection.