Pressure to be Beautiful
The feminine image as depicted in various kind of media platforms such as television and magazines, appears highly sexualized, and this affects contemporary society opinion of women. A lot of women continue to suffer pressure to look beautiful in terms of having skinny bodies that are aesthetically acceptable for their relative sexiness. Quite a sizeable number of women are the subjects of societal ridicule on the basis of their aesthetics. Due to societal pressures to look beautiful, many women, young and mature alike, have to deal with diminished self-esteems due to the demonization of their appearances. The unrealistic images on street billboards and on televisions have caused women to only feel content only in the event they work towards achieving the visualized perfection, which sometimes is unachievable in reality The purpose of this paper is to discuss in detail the theme of societal pressures for women to look beautiful as per the accounts of different works of literature. Also, to explore similarities and differences presented in each work with respect to the theme.
Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston story Sweat , presents the pressurisation of women in order that they may be deemed beautiful in form of a theme. Zora brings out this aspect clearly through the use of one of the numerous characters, Delia. Even though Delia is a hardworking woman with a proper religious background, she ends up married to an abusive man. Delia is subjected to physical abuse only a few years into her marriage to Sykes. Moreover, Sykes keeps a mistress because he no longer finds Delia sexually attractive. Also, Sykes flirts with ordinary women in the streets, and through this he aims to further estrange Delia so that she may move out of their matrimonial home. That way, he hopes to get more time with his mistresses. Delia tries to act nice and to be good to him, but this does not help. To compensate for her low esteem, or partly because of it, she becomes a wash woman in order that she may make enough money to buy herself a house. It is as if Delia presence in the streets is no longer acknowledged by numerous men who no longer find her attractive. Instead, these men seem more preoccupied with judging her on the basis of the most troublesome years of her marital life. Her victimization and suffering are striking, but her strength and ability to endure all this despite the tormenting cycles, present the overall theme of morality.
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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oats
In the story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oats, one character, Connie is used to represent the societal pressure for women to look beautiful. Connie despises her responsibilities to her family and dislikes to be seen as either a daughter or a sister. Connie likes to spend time away from her family and is obsessed with her looks to such an extent that she makes fun of her frumpy sister. She prefers to hang out with friends and finds a special kind of thrill in flirting with some of the boys that are around. She is happy that her friends are just as beautiful as her male counterparts. She has a behavioral duplicity and is a completely different person at home and away from it. Connie has personal preferences in as far as the popular models of walking postures, dressing and face making are concerned (Oates & Wolff, 2013). This kind of inauthenticity makes her look beautiful and sexually attractive.
This image is totally suppressed when she is at home. Notably, her sexuality persona is hidden and unexpressed. However, the pressure to look attractive seems to come to the fore right at home when Arnolds friends pay her a visit. Her multiple personalities conflict in contradict, somewhat violent manner as she tries to prove that she is a grown woman. Connie, in spite of her interactions with males of roughly her age, feels that she is mature enough to possibly be attractive to even older men. However, this is not the case when Arnold finds her to be sexually attractive. Connie gets a terrified feeling, seeing as she is uncertain of the reality that comes along with maturity. She is not sure whether or not to be return Arnolds romance to her, and she cries out to her mother when Arnold shows up at her house.
The Language of the Brag by Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds presents mainstream depictions of the feminine body and narrates her experience in the cycle of attaining a perfect look. The poet shows how women are affected by the pressure from society to look beautiful and sexually attractive. In the poem, the speaker is found imagining her body as being athletic and sexually appealing at the same time. The phrase, “I have wanted”, is repetitive across the poem, and this gives it a personal touch. The desire to want a sexually flawless body indicates the power that is apportioned to women's physical appearance. The combination of violence and sex indicates power, even though this mostly eludes the speaker in the poem (Snodgrass, 2006). The speaker further goes on to represent the phase in which she wanted but didn't give any physical achievement, I have wanted some epic use for my excellent body, some heroism, some American achievement beyond the ordinary for my extraordinary self, magnetic and tensile, I have stood by the sandlot and watched the boys play. In the poem, the speaker demonstrates the power to achieve a physically fit body but is unable to fully express this desire due to widespread global chauvinism.
There Was Once by Margaret Atwood
The purpose of Margaret Atwood's There Was Once is to give a reflection of the struggle within the feminine sections of the global population to achieve an idealistic kind of beautiful look. Margaret narrates aspects of this kinds of aspirations and desires, especially with respect to young ladies. In her short story, there is even a palpable struggle with regard to referring to the young girl as beautiful. There exists a girl who is made fun of because of her body shape. She is overweight with big, front teeth. Further, Margaret points out that someone is technically unable to switch to the polar opposite in the case where the people who are not represented are at a higher rank than those who have overweight bodies (Fedosova, 2014).
The Birth of Venus by Muriel Rukayser
Muriel Rukeyser's work The Birth of Venus gives detailed information on the pressures that women face with respect to attaining a kind of beauty that is socially acceptable. The Greek goddess of love is born from the sea. The beautiful goddess, whose hair is finely good, made attractive flowers to sprout on the sea sand when she stepped on it. The beautiful incarnate goddess receives numerous gifts from the Olympian gods who wish to lure her to themselves, but to their surprise, she chooses Hephastus, who is comparably less fair than them to be her husband. Aphrodite is confident enough of her beauty and this is evidenced by the numerous men who desire her. The poem depicts the conditioning of women to seek male approval for their beauty. The speaker employs rhetorical questioning in the poem to give the Beloved the pleasure of being placed in a higher rank than that of Botticelli's goddess. When the beloved in Venus crosses over to the other side, her beauty surpasses the beauty of all others. To that end, the speaker poses, “Tell me was Venus more beautiful than you are?”
Song of One of the Girls by Dorothy Parker
The good look of ones image as per a mirror's reflection, places good checks on the worldly perception of beauty and the pressures that it is associated. The work, Song of One of the Girls by Dorothy Parker pictures the kind of pressure that women are subjected to so as to achieve acceptably beautiful looks. The speaker compares herself with different kind of ladies who are good looking and who have glamorous bodies:
Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, a moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton is I, as well.
In me, Recamier vies with Kitty O Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell. I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook (Pettit, 2000).
From Dedication to Hunger by Louise Gluck
Louise Gluck in her work, From Dedication to Hunger discusses and cirtiques the issue dealing with the pressurization of women to appear socially beautiful. The dedication gives the most notable confirmation of the theme. This particular poem relays the speakers own numerous memories by applying the phrase "I at line seven, I remember touching the soft, digressive breasts". Such like dedication to hunger, interferes with the speaker's overall health wellbeing, and this contradicts her, need to perfect. The speaker wants to look fine and so she thins and burns out the "unnecessary" weight from her body. However, the speaker is surprised with the rejection of her soft breasts and blossom with subterfuge (14), indicating that the restrictive adornment is directly associated with feminism and beauty (Paretti, 2002).
The similarities in all of these literature works are that each and every work tries to connect the push and pressure that women in the modern world face with respect to attaining a socially acceptable kind of beauty. The works depict how women are victimized by general societal pressure to achieve unrealistic and unattainable bodies. The main distinct features in the works is that they lay the concept on different grounds. Each work’s representation of how women get pressure from the surrounding to look beautiful differs including their use of the characters.
The literary work, There Was Once by Margaret Atwood, was the most influential because it reflected on the victimization that women experience in relation to their overweight bodies. Also, the work , Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oats, was really compelling seeing as it depicts the mistakes that women make in trying to impress men instead of being self-confident and self-contented. The work also shows the scolding of overweight people and how it eats on their self-esteem. In contemporary society, a lot of women are exposed to the pressure to look inauthentic, quite alike the ads on billboards and televisions. The fact of the matter is that, personal gratification cannot be derived from societal approval. Women should feel good and confident with their physical appearance. They should not victimize themselves based on the modern, beauty obsessed society and should feel neither insecure nor ashamed of their looks.
References
Fedosova, T. V. (2014). Actualization of the Concept of Time in Margaret Atwood's Worldview. Kemerovo State University Bulletin.
Snodgrass, M. E. (2006). Encyclopedia of feminist literature. New York: Facts On File.
Oates, J. C., & Wolff, T. (2013). Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?. Difusión, Centro de Investigacióny Pubicaciones de Idiomas.
Paretti, M. C. (2002). Louise Gluck (1943). Catherine Cucinella, 148.
Pettit, R. S. (2000). A gendered collision: sentimentalism and modernism in Dorothy Parker's poetry and fiction. F airleigh Dickinson Univ Press.
