In the essay “How I Lost the Junior Miss Pageant,” Cindy Bosely effectively uses different rhetorical techniques to expose the true darkness behind the workings of beauty pageants, even junior ones, and her simple country life. The story details how from a young age, Bosely watched the Miss America Pageant, participating as an independent judge, whiler her mother sat beside her and gave little commentary on what she thought of all the contestants. It was clear that her mother hoped she might be one day be the kind or pretty where boys liked her and she could win beauty pageants, even as Cindy grows older and her realizes that her daughter is not the particular kind of beautiful she had hoped. It’s when she turns seventeen that she is finally
…show more content…
Which she, of course, loses. The story itself sounds quite simple, probably something many girls all around the world have experienced, but it's laced with something much more grim than meets the eye. Cindy Bosely does a really amazing job of creating this effect of descending into something darker and darker as the story goes on. It seems to start off pretty light hearted, just a girl and her mother and their small dream, but towards the last five paragraphs, Bosely starts revealing how cynical this whole process really is. “It’s a contest no one should want to win. Our mother should not have such dreams for us,” is a statement almost at the very end that sums up just how the author truly feels about the pageant. It is a contest based solely on shallowness and giving everyone what they want. A rich and pretty girl who’s dying to save the world somehow. Cindy Bosely was real, and in her essay she makes it clear that real is not what wins you beauty pageants. Even in town like her’s. The increasingly grim tone of the narration is also exemplified through how Bosely describes …show more content…
Towards the end, Bosely states, “...you hide away from the world until your self grows strong enough to break you out, and then you leave and you pray for your mother’s loneliness and you spend your life learning to come to terms with yours own, and you are smart and willful and strong, and you don’t ever have to draw another chart before the pageant begins.” The quote details Cindy Bosely’s own journey as she comes to terms with who she is and learns to love herself. Maybe her mother is right, maybe she’s chubby and not the kind of pretty that boys like, but she is so much more. Bosely doesn’t just want to spread the message of her dislike for pageants, she wants to spread a message of realizing that there is so many more important details about a person than simply the way they look, how much money they have, and whether or not they know how to tell people what they want to
Which she, of course, loses. The story itself sounds quite simple, probably something many girls all around the world have experienced, but it's laced with something much more grim than meets the eye. Cindy Bosely does a really amazing job of creating this effect of descending into something darker and darker as the story goes on. It seems to start off pretty light hearted, just a girl and her mother and their small dream, but towards the last five paragraphs, Bosely starts revealing how cynical this whole process really is. “It’s a contest no one should want to win. Our mother should not have such dreams for us,” is a statement almost at the very end that sums up just how the author truly feels about the pageant. It is a contest based solely on shallowness and giving everyone what they want. A rich and pretty girl who’s dying to save the world somehow. Cindy Bosely was real, and in her essay she makes it clear that real is not what wins you beauty pageants. Even in town like her’s. The increasingly grim tone of the narration is also exemplified through how Bosely describes …show more content…
Towards the end, Bosely states, “...you hide away from the world until your self grows strong enough to break you out, and then you leave and you pray for your mother’s loneliness and you spend your life learning to come to terms with yours own, and you are smart and willful and strong, and you don’t ever have to draw another chart before the pageant begins.” The quote details Cindy Bosely’s own journey as she comes to terms with who she is and learns to love herself. Maybe her mother is right, maybe she’s chubby and not the kind of pretty that boys like, but she is so much more. Bosely doesn’t just want to spread the message of her dislike for pageants, she wants to spread a message of realizing that there is so many more important details about a person than simply the way they look, how much money they have, and whether or not they know how to tell people what they want to