Today I read the story, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is The Self” by Alice Walker (found on page 117). To be honest, I couldn’t really relate to a single thing in poor Alice’s life. Once I finished reading the moderate chapter sized writing, I simply said “ok”. Sure I wrote a few notes and questions now and then in the margins, but when I try to reflect on the story absolutely nothing comes to mind. I suppose I will attempt to explain why this story has left me clueless.
As I was reading through this writing, I asked simple questions; why was it that when Alice grew up into a tomboy her brothers received BB guns and she wasn’t allowed one. Alice’s brothers were her closest and only friends. If anything, Alice would have been more responsible with a BB gun than her brothers. Mainly because Alice’s whole life changed from her brothers and their “toys”. While Alice had her bows and arrows to play with (since girls didn’t have guns), innocent Alice was shot in the eye by one of her brothers. Not to mention that Alice’s health was just about the last thing her brothers worried about after the accident. They were too worried about getting in trouble, and for their sake Alice told her parents that she stepped on a wire, breaking it and causing it to fly up into her eye.
That was just about the main part of the writing that I felt somewhat mind-boggled. After the accident Alice explained how he hung her head down all the time. I would do that same; however, she gave the first impression of having some good potential. It’s not fair that she had to go through that as a child, but at the same time she shouldn’t have let that one accident impact her whole life.
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Interesting--I like the question you start your middle paragraph with. The paragraph loses that focus, though. If you keep thinking it through, can you see other points you might have made to follow the question?
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