Ugly Truth

Beauty. Now that’s a topic that is very common in our world. Like I have said in my previous blogs, I am  always surprised by the topics that are present in this book. Such as, war, religion, aliens, Cinderella, and now beauty? Vonnegut clearly has a talent to put all of those different concepts in one whole book. The weirdest part is that they at the end they all connect to each other. Impressive.  

Even though beauty wasn’t something that Vonnegut talked about for a long time it was something that definitely grabbed my attention. “Most Trafalmadorians had no way of knowing Billy’s body and face were not beautiful. They supposed that he was a splendid specimen. This had a pleasant affect on Billy, who began to enjoy his body for the first time.” Not only when I read this did I feel bad for Billy, since he never felt good about himself, but it made me realize that perspectives have a great impact on what we believe. As in this case beauty. Something that may seem beautiful to one may not to another.

The moment when I read those lines in the book I didn’t pay close attention to them, but something got me hooked and made me read it once again. That is when I realized that this topic shouldn’t be ignored.  So as I started to think, I remembered that last year in Mrs. Thomas Pre-Ap English Class we had to do one big project of an essential topic. I chose beauty, so I started to connect with what I had learned from the project and what was being said in the book.

Depending on the culture that you belong to has a tremendous effect on what you believe. Take into account the people from Mauritania. A generation ago, girls were fed more than the boys to show that they were not poor and they could feed themselves. Where as a girl who was thin would not be respected by society and be considered poor. This is something that still goes around but in a more easy way manner. We normally see really skinny girls as the ones that are the most beautiful ones. We envy them and we want to have those bodies, but it’s interesting to see how people’s beliefs can be the total opposite. Thanks to different points of view, we have diversity and change in our world. It would be extremely boring to have girls that are photocopies of each other but then again our society is kind of that way. Sometimes change isn’t the most accepting subject.

It’s really sad to see how people are affected by what other people think. I am not going to lie, its something that affects each and every one of us, including me. How come we cant be happy with ourselves unless others approve it? Why cant the only person who has an opinion about ourselves be us? Why cant we just be happy with ourselves? I don’t know but it’s the ugly truth.

Thanks to those lines in the book it made me reflect. Billy was finally happy with himself because the Trafalmadorians thought that he was a special type of person. They didn’t say if he was beautiful or ugly. They just couldn’t say it, they didn’t have another earthling to compare him to. And even if they did, they would have to make up the definition of beauty towards humans since it doesn’t exist. And when that is over with people would be once again be categorized in 2 scary groups. The beautiful and the ugly.