Alice Walker 3 Essay Research Paper In

Alice Walker 3 Essay, Research Paper In life people face various obstacles and must somehow tough their way through them. In literature authors create characters with problems and lives that can be very difficult at times. It is up to the author to decide how the character will turn out in the end. In Alice Walker s works, the female characters often have hard lives, but they always triumph in the end. Walker takes her characters on very harsh paths throughout her stories, but she always finds a way for them to learn, grow, and surmount. Alice Walker also shows her style in non-fiction pieces based on her life experiences. In Beauty: When the Other Dancer is The Self, she tells the story of her childhood devastation. This consisted of her becoming blinded in one eye while

playing cowboys and Indians with her brothers. She began her essay by telling the audience of her incredible childhood before the accident. She shows us that she was happy, energetic, and worry-free. It was great being cute. But the one day, it ended. (Beauty 2) This is when she begins to tell her story, and we see that she does rise above in the end. Alice and her brothers were playing like they always did. Alice was standing watch on the top of a roof when she felt an incredible pain in her eye. Her brother had shot her. Her parents took her to the doctor a week later. The doctor was very surprised that she had not been in sooner. His reply was: Why did you wait so long to come? Eyes are sympathetic, if one is blind, the other will likely become blind too. (Beauty 2) Walker

said that comment terrified her. White scar tissue formed and made her look hideous. She went from a happy, healthy little girl, who always stared at people, to a girl who never looked up. She became very self-conscience, and her schoolmates always picked on her. One boy always called her the one-eyed bitch. This is a great demonstration of a woman having a hard life. She then shows us the way she comes through in the end, mostly due to her daughter and brother. One day when she was fourteen, her brother Bill took her and got the cataract removed. The tissue was gone, but she was blind forever and a bluish crater still remained. This is where Walker begins to show the audience her triumph. Once the scar tissue is removed she completely transformed. She graduated high school as

Valedictorian, the Prom Queen, and most popular girl in her class. But she still had the blue scar to make her feel self-conscious about the way she appeared. As she grew older she had a daughter. Her daughter, Rebecca, was probably the person that gave her the most confidence in her eye, because Alice always looked at it as a flaw. That night, as I do almost every night, I abuse my eye. I rant and rave at it, in front of the mirror. I plead with it to clear up before morning. I tell it I hate and despise it. I do not pray for sight. I pray for beauty. (Beauty 3) This clearly expresses her discontent with her appearance. One day while watching television with her daughter Rebecca, she looked at her very seriously and said, Mommy, there s a world in your eye She was both shocked

and amazed at this comment. But it really did open her eyes. She then realized that she had been looking at her eye in the wrong way. This is expressed in the following: For the most part, the pain left then Crying and laughing I ran to the bathroom, while Rebecca mumbled and sang herself to sleep. Yes indeed, I realized, looking into the mirror. There was a world in my eye. And I saw that it was possible to love it: that in fact, for all it had taught me of shame and anger and inner vision, I did fatigue, not mention floating back at attention in excitement (bearing witness, a friend has called it), deeply suitable to my personality, and even characteristic of me (Beauty 6). Walker had finally come to peace with her imperfection. She also realized that it was what made her