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Ugly Pretty, Or Reality?

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Ugly Pretty, Or Reality?
Ugly, Pretty, or Reality?

Imagine a society of extreme beauty that anyone normal is considered ugly. Although the two classifications of, ugly and pretty are viewed as immensely different, they have one thing in common. Being in either one these categories causes not only domination of physical appearance, but also steals the identity of an individual. The only way out is sacrifice. Westerfield’s dystopian fiction novel, Uglies tells the story of an adolescent girl, Tally Youngblood, who is trapped in a society where once one turns sixteen a surgical operation to turn ‘pretty. Is performed’ In the beginning of the novel Tally dreams of nothing more than to receive this operation and become beautiful with her friend Peris who has already had
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When Shay introduces David Tally hardly even believes that such a person exists. “‘David? That’s a funny name! It sounds made up’”(68). She states she doesn’t think that David is a trustworthy person and that he is ballistic if he refuses the operation of turning pretty. However risking everything to save David’s parents helps her empathize with the people living there therefore altering Tally’s opinion of David. “I had lost everything. Shay, my parents, and I couldn’t afford to lose David too”(283). In this scene The Smoke is vanishing which involves the abduction of her fellow smokies including the beloved Shay. Tally realises she can’t risk the loss of David on top of everything else that diminishes between her fingers. She knows she will lose so much more than a city, thus she decides to do what she can to rescue David’s parents. Due to the fact that she decides to help David even though her own life is at stake, she views him not by the quality of their appearance but by the content of his character. Accordingly, Tally’s choice of supporting David causes her to view individuals from a different perspective going beyond their physical …show more content…
“She took a deep breath. ‘Okay you’ve got a willing subject. ‘What do you mean Tally?’ ‘Me.’ ” (395.) In this point of the novel, Tally volunteers to turn pretty so that David’s parents could experiment on her and see if the brain damage would allow her to return back to her normal state. This evidently shows how smaller actions could potentially lead to major impacts because Tally sacrifices everything she knows to rescue Shay. Whilst in the Smoke, she performs small sacrifices such as supporting the people of the Smoke through their everyday lives. Tally grasps on to the fact that she truly belongs in the smoke and can see past the city's boundaries. Although she is holding on to that for a tremendous amount of time, she still returns to the city and sacrifices herself because she now understands what it means to see true qualities behind a character. Without a doubt, humble choices along the way influence Tally to make life changing decisions thus impacting both personality and

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