Within today’s culture the definition of ‘beauty’ is narrowly defined. There is generally one type of women who fits this definition and is understood and accepted to be ‘beautiful.’ Over the course of history this definition has changed. However, what hasn’t changed is a woman’s fear of being judged and forgotten for differing from their cultures expectation of ‘beauty.’ When women feel like they have been forgotten, they begin to lose the true meaning of beautiful and lose track of where it really lies. Alice Walker’s ‘Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self,’ is an autobiography about finding the true meaning of beauty and self realisation. Within this autobiography, walker explains her life changing experience of being shot in the eye by a bee-bee gun by her brother and how it has impacted her views regarding the true meaning of ‘beauty.’
I found that ‘Beauty: When the Other Dance is the Self’ was an inspirational story about overcoming life’s difficulties to eventually live a healthier one. Throughout Walkers story, I felt her use of chronological narrative organization, imagery, repetition and analogy, helped me explore her journey into her quest for the meaning of ‘true beauty’. In the beginning of the story I found that maybe walker deserved to see life through one eye in order to widen her gaze on ‘true beauty’ as she was vein and cocky. However this position regarding the text was quickly challenged as her description of ‘true beauty’ began to craft a more understanding, desirable shape as she grew older.
My position originally can be influenced by my gender, age, class and personal history. As I have grown overtime, my perceptions of ‘beauty,’ like Walker, have changed. Growing up as a young male in a middle class country town, my focus on my looks was not as intense as that of Walker’s. With gender stereotyping of a manly, country boy preventing me from focussing on my visual image with the same intensity as walker, I was able to construct what I call my personal description of ‘true beauty’ at an early age. Although this description may differ to many other foreign cultures, ‘true beauty’ as I know it is considered the ‘norm’ within my community. Additionally past experience has taught me to dislike vein, cocky girls and may explain why I have a certain degree of comfort towards Walker’s accident at the beginning of the story. However when analysed further, I found that
This position however was challenged after revisiting the text and after in class discussion. With Walkers narrative repetition throughout the text asking herself what the definition of ‘beauty’ was in different stages of her life, I was forced to look at her in a different light. As I read on I found that the language used within the autobiography dramatically changes to portray the ever changing appearance that Walker and others vision her to be. This is where I found ‘true beauty’ to be. Proof that there are in fact changes can be found through Walker’s quote “you did not change, they say.” This statement alone implies to the reader that she must think she has changed if she constantly repeats this.
I feel that in an English classroom, I feel that implementing this reading into a lesson will highly develop students imagination in regards to alternate meanings and relatedness. Through developing alternate thinking students are able to analyse material and brainstorm with different meanings found in texts. Developing relatedness can help alternate thinking as students learn to use their life experiences to relate to the author and in turn position themselves as the implied reader. With alternate thinking and relatedness, students can improve their brainstorming abilities as well as widen their gaze of the world surrounding them.
CLB322 