The state of beauty is something that is distinguishable by the heart and inner acknowledgement rather than the simple look from one’s eyes. In “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, Alice Walker uses Pathos to describe her adventures along with vivid imagery and snapshots to explain her emotions from every phase of beauty she is in. Her diction starts with a childlike notion to adultlike as the story progresses. She writes about intervals of her life in which she feels her appearance has made an impact on how she carried herself. Walker begins with her acknowledgment of self beauty when she is a young girl to viewing herself as shameful and repulsive. By the end of the story, Walker realizes her beauty, the one that comes from within,
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Because of the incident, she becomes blind in one eye and due to prolonged medical attention a scar is left there that causes her eye to stray away when not paid attention to. Walker abhors her “ugly” self because of her eye and shies away from raising her head at people scared that society will notice her and judge. She says, “That night, as I do almost every night, I abuse my eye. I rant and ravee 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” (274). Alice Walker pushes herself everyday since the incident to try and erase what has happened, but no attempt made it. She was used to the bombardment of compliments that she received when she was younger but due to her brother’s shooting her in the eye, she perceived herself as not beautiful. She says this as a sort of prayer to whatever she believes in and wishes for the scar to almost every night. She asks people whether it was still there, but nevertheless it remained. She refused to take a glance above mouth level in fear that the stares of judgement. She could have gotten medical attention the instant she was impacted, but with her brothers threatening her with a punishment if she told her parents, it was much too late for the doctor to treat her when she arrived a week after the accident. She explains the struggles of her life as she moves to a new community and a whole new group of people get to see her. Everything that Walker knew about herself kept deteriorating as the memory of of the accident and the accident itself slowly ruined her
Because of the incident, she becomes blind in one eye and due to prolonged medical attention a scar is left there that causes her eye to stray away when not paid attention to. Walker abhors her “ugly” self because of her eye and shies away from raising her head at people scared that society will notice her and judge. She says, “That night, as I do almost every night, I abuse my eye. I rant and ravee 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” (274). Alice Walker pushes herself everyday since the incident to try and erase what has happened, but no attempt made it. She was used to the bombardment of compliments that she received when she was younger but due to her brother’s shooting her in the eye, she perceived herself as not beautiful. She says this as a sort of prayer to whatever she believes in and wishes for the scar to almost every night. She asks people whether it was still there, but nevertheless it remained. She refused to take a glance above mouth level in fear that the stares of judgement. She could have gotten medical attention the instant she was impacted, but with her brothers threatening her with a punishment if she told her parents, it was much too late for the doctor to treat her when she arrived a week after the accident. She explains the struggles of her life as she moves to a new community and a whole new group of people get to see her. Everything that Walker knew about herself kept deteriorating as the memory of of the accident and the accident itself slowly ruined her