Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self Freewrite
This essay was very easy to read and had a much more uplifting overall message than Mirrors. I liked how it was kind of randomly pieced together, because it makes me feel like I am more inside the author’s head than usual. My thoughts are usually random and sporadic so it was a lot more relatable. As a reader, you also feel more sympathetic towards Alice Walker because she describes the entire event so vividly, as opposed to Grealy who briefly mentions the fact that she had cancer.
Walker’s mother reminded me of the character Sofia from her book The Color Purple. Both are very strong, independent, stubborn women. There is even a part in the novel where Sofia refuses to help the Mayor’s wife even though she is white and more powerful than she is. That is strikingly similar to Walker’s mother refusing to help Miss Mey, even though she employs her husband. Walker herself also reminded me of the character Nettie because they are both very pretty and intelligent. They are also fighters and will work for what they want. Nettie refused to take abuse from her father like Celie did, so she got up the courage to leave. Walker also worked up the courage to confront the bullies who would tease her about her eye.
The entire passage seemed to be written like a poem; Grealy’s essay was much more straightforward. She takes artistic risks like asking rhetorical questions, inserting poetry, and listing memories. I did not particularly like how she put the poetry in the middle of the essay. I thought it was unnecessary because it did not tell the readers anything that they did not know. It just emphasizes how grateful she is to be able to see out of her other eye, but I think the audience could have easily assumed that without the poem. I also did not like how Walker did not tie in the title until the very end of the passage. Personally I think it is much cleverer when it is woven through the entire passage and is a running theme. The way Walker did it makes it seem as though it was an after thought and she just slapped it on at the end. I was a little confused at first about when walker asks herself “did I imagine the anguish of never looking up?” I was confused because she still technically has sight and on a literal level she can look up. I thought for a second that she might mean looking up at heaven. But most likely she felt ashamed that she always averted her eyes in shame, while her mother was such a strong woman.
Overall, I liked this one more because it was much more engaging than Mirrors. The author was much more relatable and interesting. It also was much more fast-paced and random, which works well for today’s generation. It’s also much more refreshing to see an author take risks instead of writing everything so straightforward. It was also interesting to me because I have read her novel The Color Purple, and it is always interesting to compare the different works by the same author.