Many people have different perceptions of suffering. Some of them see sickness and trauma as the main causes of sorrow and anguish in a person’s life. Rarely does a person think that one’s physical appearance can be a cause of sorrow and misery. This is Lucy’s story. She recounts the events of her life in her book Autobiography of a Face. She developed cancer as a young child, and this forced her to undergo surgery and numerous sessions of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She had to endure numerous stares and insults from other people. This was a trying time for the young girl considering what she had to undergo. However, it did not compare to her later years. She spent countless hours in hospitals trying to get the perfect face. She did not want to be different from everyone else. In the end, she realized that the beauty and satisfaction that she was looking for were deeper within her. She could not get what she was looking for in the mirror or in the approval of others. To Lucy, being different from others was worse than the cancer she had. Despite the numerous challenges she faced, Lucy remained resilient.
As I read the book, I could not help but sympathize with Lucy. I felt the pain and anguish that she went through as I imagined how hard it was for her to live her life in hospitals. However, I felt that she could have been more patient with herself. I believe that, had she taken the time to understand her situation better, then she would have avoided most of the pain that she experienced in later years. She did not have a clear understanding of who she was from the beginning. This meant that she was willing to become anyone, and it explains her numerous efforts to reconstruct her face. I believe that this book has valuable less...
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...he needs of the disabled because it fails to adjust by removing those impediments. If society provides what the disabled people need, then they will be able to participate in normal activities, and people will not focus on their disability. Grealy mentions “Society is no help. It tells us again and again that we can most be ourselves by acting and looking like someone else, only to leave our original faces behinds to turn in ghosts that will inevitably resent and haunt us”, which Lucy views herself from the socio-political model perspective. She believes that she can be better if the society provides her with what she needs. In her opinion, she requires medical attention for her reconstructions, and she expects to get this in her country. She is forced to move to the London to take advantage of the medical coverage there when she can no longer do so in her country.
It was painful to see how hard the parents worked to get Lynn to be normal like the rest of the family. They spent so much of their time focusing on getting her to talk and read lips that they overlooked one huge factor: that no matter how hard they tried, Lynn was deaf. It was so frustrating to see how much resistance they had towards using sign language. It was sad to see how disappointed the parents were when they learned of Lynn’s deafness even though it was easy to see they loved their child very much. I feel as though this book was a great look into how the world wants to fix, and repair people with disabilities and how strong and proud the deaf community is that they would rather consider themselves to be special and of their own culture than to be considered less abled than a hearing person. I like that the story started off with the parents frantically trying to fix Lynn, and ultimately led to their love, acceptance, and celebration of their daughter’s deafness. In the beginning of the book Thomas and Louise are told not to treat Lynn like she is deaf because then she will act
In a search to find our ancestors, several anthropologists have found evidence to support their conclusions. In the films about Don Johanson's discovery of Lucy in Hadar, one may be very intrigued by the first film but very disturbed by the second film.
Autobiography of a Face follows the story of Lucy Grealy, who as a child was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer leading to the removal of part of her jaw. With the damage to her face conspicuous to the rest of the world, Grealy struggles with her concepts of beauty and strength in the face of adversity. Her memoir makes a brilliant comment on the nature and definition of strength, and the lengths to which one will go in order to protect oneself from harm.
In today’s world, many people place a huge emphasis upon appearance, self-image and fitting in. Some are willing to go great lengths to gain a better sense of confidence, even though the outcome may come at a great cost. In the short story,“Anointed With Oils”. Alden Nowlan introduced Edith as a young, shack girl who tried so hard to extinguish her past to create a new life for herself. As an uneducated young lady, Edith found it very hard to land a respectable and organized job that she desired. She was embarrassed of many aspects of her life so she always tried to enhance her quality of life and the way she appeared. Edith believed that in order to be a star, she needed to be beautiful but she didn't see that in herself. Changing her appearance
Almost everyone either has lost someone due to cancer or knows someone who has battled cancer, but you can't appreciate how much suffering cancer patients go through. The Autobiography of a Face gives us the opportunity to relate to someone going through this that many people do not understand. Lucy Grealy does an exceptional job portraying the toll Chemotherapy puts on one's body. Pathos is used in order to make her audience feel the pain that she is going through to connect her to the audience. In this book you can understand Grealyś true feelings which makes you feel apart of her adventure and not want
Gazing upon my sister, it was as though she had been replaced by her complete opposite. Where once her face had been covered with smiles all of the time, her face was now contorted with grief, and it looked like she would never smile again. Her look could only be described as a small child who has lost a toy in the sand box.
After Lucy’s death the remaining characters feel various powerful kinds of emotions that help with avenging her death.
From the beginning of time the human race has sought advancement, from the early innovations of the wheel to the discovery of coal as a power source. We never could have imagined that the things that have put us above any other species might be the things that destroy us. Earth 2100 tells the story of Lucy: a fictional character who is born in the year 2009 and lives to see what the year 2100 brings, and it is not pretty. Lucy experiences some pretty scary stuff throughout her life and her perspective as a child, a young adult, a middle aged woman, and an elderly woman vary. Throughout the 21st century the world experiences severe natural disasters, wars for the few remaining natural resources, the breakdown of countries and their borders,
In this piece, Grealy describes the influence of her experiences of cancer, its treatments, and the resulting deformity of her face on her development as a person. She explores how physical appearance influences one's sexual identity and over all self worth. She also explores how one's own interpretation of one's appearance can be self fulfilling. Only after a year of not looking at herself in the mirror, ironically at a time when she appears more "normal" than ever before, does Grealy learn to embrace her inner self and to see herself as more than one’s looks or physical appearance.
In the short story, “ Birthamrk”, the main characters defining aspect of her identify is a port wine stained birthmark on her face. She has always struggled with the mark on her face, which made her feel uncomfortable; she believed that she would be prettier if she did not have the mark on her face. The character had the birthmark removed when she was twenty-three but, “she has waited patiently from the time she was fourteen” to have it removed. After it was removed she still felt self-conscious. The character believed that people who met her after her aesthetic surgery would feel differently about her. Moreover, she did not choose this identity for herself, because she...
August Pullman and Roy “Rocky” Dennis don’t look like the rest of us. August and Roy were born with a disorder in their face, leading to their face being deformed. “Wonder,” by Raquel Palacio, is a fiction novel based on the views from August’s close family and friends. This story explains how it feels to have a deformed face. “The remarkable life and death of Roy L. “ Rocky” Dennis,” by Elysia McMahan, is a nonfiction article based on the life of Roy Dennis. It describes how people can react to other people with deformed features. The theme, tone, and characterization all help the reader understand the topic.
Flipping through the pages of Vogue's latest edition, 23 year-old Susan seems quite upset. She struggles with the thought of lacking the perfect body and delicate features in order to be considered attractive. Surprisingly, Susan is not alone in this kind of an internal struggle. In contemporary society, every other woman aspires to have the lips of Angelina Jolie and the perfect jaw line of Keira Knightley. Society today looks down upon individuals that do not fit in, whether in terms of body shape or facial attractiveness. This forces them to consider the option of 'ordering beauty.' Since cosmetic surgery is no longer a social taboo in America given its widespread popularity, more people are promoting it which ultimately affects the rest of the world due to the unwavering influence of American culture. Cosmetic surgery should be deterred in the US because it promotes the idea of valuing appearance over ability, gives rise to unrealistic expectations, and brings with it high cost to society.
Today, the idea of beauty has been turned into unattainable forms by media, trends, and marketing. To reach the social’s standard of beauty, many people have gone anorexic, bulimic, or have been addicted to plastic surgery. Many people are wasting money on beauty products to make themselves prettier, but they forget that their inner beauty is more important. Inner beauty is an essential key to the overall appearance of someone. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and is the combination of inner and outer attractiveness of one
There are over seven billion people on earth and every single one looks different. No matter how much people say that being different is unique, they are wrong. Society has set a beauty standard, with the help of the media and celebrities, that makes people question their looks. This standard is just a definition of what society considers being “beautiful.” This idea is one that mostly everyone knows about and can relate to. No one on this planet is exactly the same, but people still feel the need to meet this standard. Everyone has two sides to them; there is the one that says “you are perfect just the way you are”, while the other side puts you down and you tell yourself “I have to change, I have to fit in.” There is always going to be that side that cares and the one that doesn’t.