English "lamott"

Paper #2

Lamott’s statement about acceptance provides the writers with an understanding of being able to acknowledge who they are in the inside, as well an understanding how society views them on the outside. The experiences of Walker, Grealy, and Daum all relate strongly to Lamotts statement about surrendering to one’s situation. Walker, Grealy, and Daum all encountered uncomfortable situations, which in the end, all had to learn to live with and overcome their insecurities.

Alice Walker grew up as ordinary as any other child would; she was pretty little girl who enjoyed life to the fullest until the “accident”. “It was great being cute. But then, one day, it ended” (43). Alice was playing outside when all of a sudden she was shot in her eye from her brothers BB gun. It was an accident, but “Where the BB pellet struck there is a glob of whitish scar tissue, a hideous cataract, on my eye…now when I stare at people-they will stare back. Not at the “cute” little girl, but at her scar” (43). The accident made Alice conceal herself from the world and view it differently; it was as if she became introverted from society. She could no longer be outgoing and be who she thought she once was.

Alice was undergoing a change within her, but on the outside everyone said she did not change, the only thing that was different was her eye. After several years of her “glob” that was implanted in her eye she decide to see a doctor to have it removed. After the operation she felt more confident, but not anywhere to the best of her capabilities. She was interviewed and asked for a photo shoot for her book, but Alice thought about not taking the picture. She thought she would be criticized if she were not pictured in her book. “My meanest critics will say I’ve sold out” (46).

After many years of being afraid to show her face in public and interact with people, Alice finally had one dramatic day that turned the rest of her life upward and made her realize that her eye isn’t all that bad. Her daughter says, “Mommy there’s a world in your eye”(48). This comment made Alice feel astounded and she was basically able to overcome her uncomfortable situation.

Lucy Grealy’s story also supports Lammot’s statement. Lucy was a young girl who had cancer in her jaw and had to receive Chemotherapy. She had lost her hair and was ostracized for looking like a boy. Her Jaw was also deformed and needed reconstruction. Lucy wouldn’t look at herself in the mirror because she wasn’t able to accept herself in the beginning of her childhood. She hid from looking at herself for over a year, “There was a long period of time, almost a year, in which I never looked in the mirror” (50). Lucy’s situation was more serious when compared to Walkers and Daum’s because she had the worst deformity. Her jaw was completely deformed from the cancer which had once thrived and ruined her facial structure, she did not look normal which made her act odd to others, she became an outcast towards the people around her and demoralized herself for not looking like a normal women, “I was living in an extreme situation, and because the world I did live in was a dangerous one, I incorporated this danger into my private life” (53).

Lucy eventually turned to surgery like Alice had done. She had tissue reconstruction on her jaw to make her look “normal”; “The one good thing about a tissue expander is that you look so bad with it in that no matter what you look like once its finally removed, it had to be better” (59). After