In “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” by Alice Walker, it illustrates that the idea of beauty is based on what we think about ourselves. Walker’s perception of beauty is developed through the journey of her life and how she accepts her appearance after an accident as a young child that left one of her eyes blind and different.
Through her process of self-acceptance, she transforms from a perfect child that is constantly admired for her appearance before to the accident, to a young woman suddenly surrounded by humiliation and some feelings of disesteem that the little change of her appearance caused. After this, her entire life perspective changes from a positive way to a negative since she had to deal remorse, self-disgust, and rejection mostly from herself. Her bad behavior that she developed as a result of her negative perception is shown when she states, “That night, as I do almost every night, I abuse my eye. I rant and rave at it, in front of the mirror. I plead with it to clear up before morning. I hate and despise it. I do not pray for sight. I pray for beauty” (Walker 604).
In fact, it is not until she received a surgery to improve the appearance of her blind eye that she starts to find acceptance with herself. After this procedure Walker felt beautiful once again, her perspective of life improved a lot in almost every aspect. By this, Walker shows that society’s idea of beautiful has the ability to change one’s perspective of life and is reflected in the way society is acting.
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Finally, Walker after some time was able to find peace with her eye and at last discovered how she lost time by burying herself in bad and negative attitudes or behaviors like pain, anger, and shame. She explained the moment she found true self-acceptance as she recounts a dream that she had. “As I dance, whirling and joyous, happier than I’ve ever been in my life, another bright faced dancer joins me. We dance and kiss each other and hold each other through the night. The other dancer has obviously come through all right, as I have done. She is beautiful, whole, and free. She is also me” (Walker 606).
This dream she describes is like a representation of herself before self-accepting herself with her new self and how both came to realize that being pretty does not define a person and is not something you need to have to be happy and successful.
