Beauty and the self Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Beauty and the self - Essay Example With these characteristics, a woman will always be â€Å"beautiful, whole, and free† (Walker 255), no matter what physical imperfections she may have. The beauty of a woman is multi-dimensional, combining the tradition aesthetic notions of attractiveness and inner self-realization with a soul pursuing her most innermost desires and dream in life. Beauty is a complex word with numerous, often conflicting, definitions. When connected to inner beauty, however, it results in a process of actualizing one’s identity by realizing one’s value. Walker first emphasizes the outer beauty. For the photographer, this is the beauty of what a photo can capture and for the artist; it is the beauty that can only be seen by the eyes when a picture is drawn. For the writer, just like most women, regardless of her age or ethnicity, to be beautiful is one of most important aspects of her life. After being blinded at a young age, Walker was so depressed about her eye, not because of her loss of vision, but because of the perceived blemish to her beauty. She was not strong enough to accept the fact that she was no longer the â€Å"cutest thing† in â€Å"biscuit-polished paten-leather shoes and lavender socks, tossing [her] head in a way that makers [her] ribbons bounce†, but instead the girl with â€Å"a glob of whitish scar tissue, a hideous cataract on [her] eye† (Walker 251, 253). She â€Å"[did] not pray for sight,† she â€Å"[prayed] for beauty† (Walker 254). She became lost inside herself. She did not find her true identity at first because she thought that her identity, or the ‘self’, was defined by how she looked. The relationship between the ‘self’ and beauty cannot be described without being conscious of one’s weaknesses and strengths. For a long time, Walker only saw her own weaknesses and used that as a basis for defining the roots