Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the SelfThe narrative “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, represents the specific story from Alice Walker’s autobiography, which had a great impact on her life. The story emphasizes how low-self esteem can effect person’s life. Alice Walker used to be a cute little girl at the age of six. At six, she already memorized an Easter speech. She was pride of her family and others simply admired her.
One of the major impacts of her future life played a BB gun. When she was eight years old, Walker wore boyish clothes and played with her older brothers who carried not “real” guns. One day she was blown in her right eye by the little toy her brothers used to play. Walker was told not to tell anything about the gun to her parents. Only in week, her parents and Alice went to see a doctor. By that time she already had a glob of whitish scar tissue. She also remembered the words of her doctor, “Of one is blind, the other will likely become blind too.”It is amazing how childhood may influence the future. Since that time Alice Walker lost her self-confidence, she didn’t feel that she is that cute little girl anymore who was able to amaze the audience with her long Easter speeches. Furthermore, she started doing poorly at school, her contact with others ended, she did not stare at anyone anymore because she stopped raising her head up, students in her new school made fun of her. Her relatives kept telling that she did not change at all. Although, they knew that Alice changed. Throughout the story the reader sees that Alice felt bad about herself. She had a great lack of confidence. Walker’s fixation throughout life made her an oversensitive person. At the end of the story Walker mentions that she was afraid that her own daughter might make fun of her.
It is true that person’s personality forms in early childhood and affects him/her throughout the life. If a child was told that he/she is beautiful, in the future this person most likely will have a high self-esteem and would be loved by others. At age fourteen Alice Walker’s brother took her to a local hospital, where her glob of whitish scar tissue was removed. This surgery helped Alice Walker to feel different and beautiful again. The author believes that her new appearance helped her to win a boyfriend of her dreams, many friends, leave school as a valedictorian and the most beautiful girl in her class. Although, after thirty years since the accident Alice Walker became more confident in herself, she still remembered the words of her doctor, who said that “if one eye is blind, the other will likely become blind too.” Alice Walker became a famous and respected writer, who wrote scandalous books, and when she was asked to appear on a cover of a magazine, she became very uneasy with this idea. The author was afraid that her eye will not appear straight on a picture. It did not matter how old she was, her fear to be seen in public did not change.
The childhood accident was a major impact on Walker’s life. However, Walker’s daughter helped her mother to feel better about her physical appearance. The author’s daughter saw a deep beauty in her mother’s eye, she saw something unusual and attractive that no one noticed in years. Walker’s daughter made her mother’s the best compliment she could ever receive by saying, “Mommy, there’s a world in your eye. Mommy, where did you get that world in your eye.”It is amazing how Walker’s daughter made her mother feel confident again and helped to resolve the problem of the past by giving her a credit. For the most part the fear of being not like everyone else left Walker and she learned to love her looks. One of the biggest and hardest task in people’s life is to learn to love themselves for who they are no matter what might happen in life. I believe, that self-confidence and high self-esteem is one of the important elements to a road of success. Furthermore, the person who does not love him/herself won’t be able to give his/her love to the other person. For most of the part, the person with low self-esteem is closed to love or any other tender and warm feelings. All of us want to be loved by others, but before that, we need to learn to love ourselves.
