Lucy Grealy's Autobiography Of A Face

Nonfiction is a genre of writing in which the author reflects on actual events in history. Lucy Grealy writes about an intense part of her life in a memoir. A memoir is written by the person it is about, usually written on the topic of something the author did or witnessed. Throughout this book, the author gives off vivid imagery and themes in order to help us understand just how difficult her life was. For example, in chapter 12, “Mirrors” on pages 207 to 208, Lucy describes just how a man loving her could change her view on life. Imagery, diction and setting also help to bring Lucy’s memoir together. Although this section seems to be about Lucy finding love, it is actually about the search and acceptance of self-identity as we can see from

She states “Being different was my cross to bear, but being aware of it was my compensation. When I was younger, before I’d gotten sick, I’d wanted to be special, to be different. Did this the make me t he creator of my own situation” (pg101)? It is her appearance, not her illness that changes her view of herself. Her entire identity becomes her face, and she tells herself over and over, when my face is fixed, I’ll start living. She found happiness and acceptance through her love of horses, working at a stable and spending time with the animals and the people there, who treated her like anybody else. But throughout adolescence and into young adulthood Lucy pinned her hopes on each new surgery as the one that would fix her face and make her beautiful and thus worthy of love.

She pulls her all into trying to support Saroo through his crisis. Lucy is a living example of being other orientated, “to be aware of the thoughts, needs, experiences, personality, emotions, motives, desires, culture, and goals of your communication partners while maintaining your own integrity” pg2. In Chapter one being other orientated is the first step in being a great communicator it is a fundamental step in the process without it being narcissus without taking an account the feelings of others. Lucy shows concern in Saroo's wellbeing as he prolongs his search for his lost family. With his decrease in his weight, self-hygiene, and the quitting his job are all results of his fatigue. She tries to create a change of pace for him by taking him to parties or dinner with his adoptive family. But when trying to push the topic of his research to open discussion over the dinner table it results in argument between the two. They ended their relationship at the time, but it is clear to see that she still cares for him after reappearing at her doorstep with news of finally locating the location of his original

Therefore, she would usually put herself first, not caring how it might affect the other person. However, she learns from her childhood and undergoes a transformation to becoming a better person and thinking about someone other than herself. Lucy is a thirty-eight year old woman, who may seem a bit pessimistic and selfish at times with low self-esteem, but she is also a strong willed person who will not let anyone

Strictly speaking, her mother has realized Ethel is not herself anymore, lost in a sense, after the breakup, and will cry for

Every individual person has their own way of finding comfort in difficult situations. From finding comfort in simple things like eating a cupcake to harmful and unhealthy ways like self-harm. As readers read through Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, they witness the cruelty and pain Lucy goes through as she gets treated for her cancer and how it drastically changes her appearance and affects her whole life. When Lucy was young, before she was diagnosed with cancer, her comfort was being an excellent tomboy because she was a terrible athlete but a good gamer for casual and daring games. However, that all changed when her treatment for cancer started. Ever since then, Lucy’s life became full of pain, and she withstood that pain by taking comfort in certain things.

It is difficult to portray a story of illness without incorporating a sense of melancholia; however, Lucy Grealy does exactly that in her personal memoir, Autobiography of a Face. Diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma at the age of nine, Lucy undergoes horrendous chemotherapy treatment, a surgery that removes one-third of her jaw, more than two years of radiation, and fifteen years of reconstructive surgery. Devoid of self-pity, this memoir is as innocent as it is candid and wise while Lucy recounts her struggle with cancer, disfigurement, and self-identity.

When Alice begins to grow forgetful at first she discards it, but when she gets lost in her own neighborhood, she realizes that something is terribly wrong. She didn't want to become someone people avoided and feared. She wanted to live to hold her daughter, Anna’s, baby and know she was holding her grandchild. She wanted to watch her youngest daughter, Lydia act in something she was proud of. She wanted to see her son, Tom, fall in love. She wanted to be able to read every book she could before she could no longer read. Alice once placed her worth and identity in her academic life, now she must examine her relationship with her husband, her expectations of her daughters and son and her plans for herself. “Losing her yesterdays, her short-term memory hanging on by a couple of frayed threads, she

His mother had taught him to not look at girls, and after the operation when he started to develop more feelings, he had a hard time talking to Alice Kinnian because he had the thought that he liked her, and that he shouldn’t. Due to the hard nature of his mother, Charlie’s emotional life was not maturing with his new-found intelligence. Emotionally, he was still a little kid. “I knew she would give herself to me, and I wanted her, but what about Charlie?” Whenever he would get near Alice, he would start to panic because he felt that there was still a part of his old self within him, keeping him from taking his relationship further with

this point, she had concluded on it as she saw her mother's “disappointed face”(2). In the mirror,

Helen has a need to find out what happen in her past with her relationship with her mother. Helen feels she

She feels like no one looks at her the same anymore that everyone has different opinions about her, and they all feel that Alice is a new person all together including her family especially her sister. Alice’s sister feels like she is not the same person and will not treat her the same because of her looks even though Alice explain “ [t]his is me in here Jenny, my brain is still me” (Coakley 2). Alice is really trying to help her family especially her twin sister Jenny recognize that it is still her on the inside of her body “my brain is me”. Alice wants to keep close to her sister and does not want to lose her because she thinks slice does not look the same. Part of the reason why Alice does not know her identity is because her family is not understanding and they need to try and realize it is Alice to boost her confidence in who she is. In addition Alice knows her family has not been very supportive of her new body all her family cares about is how different she looks and that they feel like she acts differently, they do not seem to care how them acting like this affects Alice when they judge who she really

She builds a close friendship with Lucy. Both girls end up burning a tampon in some womanhood-like ritual (48). However, overtime a wedge of disarticulation begins to develop between the girls as Lucy's personality take a negative shift due to changes in her life. Atwood references Lucy's mood changes when she writes about Lucy's "smug" attitude towards Lois and her desire to "run away" (48,49). There is a sensation of loss that starts to form in the mind of the reader, while there is a separation taking place between the two characters.

After that Lucy and her mom got into an argument about Lucy losing her pair of socks and Lucy gets tired of everyday arguments with her mom on little things. She stays with Kaylie for a day. The next morning she wanted to say sorry to her mom but she found her mom covered with a pile of newspaper she died. Lucy stopped right before she was about to call 911 she thought if everyone saw the dirty house what will they think about her and her life. So she thought that I will clean the house very hard so there is not spot left dirty and she will have to keep the house freeze for her mum’s dead body. Lucy remembered when last time her mum got into an accident and had to go to the hospital for days and her aunt came over and Lucy and jean her aunt thought that maybe Lucy’s mum will be happy to see their house clean so they both cleaned it and when Lucy’s mum came home she freaked out and it only took her six months to destroy the house for forever and never cleaned it and plus she kicked aunt jean out too. Some chapters tell a little more details about Lucy’s mum. Lucy remembered that on Christmas Eve her mother gave her 7 wallets that were on sale and she felt like her mom

He repeatedly insists that Lucy press charges against her attackers while she maintains her defence of saying he wasn’t there, and “you don’t know what happened” (134). With Lurie continuing to bombard her with commands to inform the authorities, Lucy finally offers an explanation for not wanting to go to the police: “ʻWhat if this is the price one has to pay for staying on? … They see me as owing something. They see themselves as debt collectors, tax collectors. Why should I be allowed to live here without paying? Perhaps that is what they tell themselves” (158). As suggested by Barnard, Lucy is “accept[ing] her fate as a symbol of the redistribution of power in post-apartheid Africa and sees her rapists as gathering apartheid debts”, as her attackers were black (Barnard 74). Lucy also says that her decision to stay silent is “Freedom of speech. Freedom to remain silent” (Coetzee 188). With this reasoning, she is silencing herself as a rape victim and accepting the consequences of the attack by deciding to keep one of the attackers’ children she becomes pregnant with , in addition to marry her black neighbour