Autobiography of Lucy Grealy
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy Before I start, I just want to know who believe in the existence of fate. Personally I did not believe that fate exist in this world but after reading this depressing and inspiring story by Lucy Grealy, I saw how the crippled side of fate destroyed ones’ life. This author here, Grealy who wrote the book called Autobiography of a Face had a jaw removal because she had discovered cancer developing in her jaw. Fate is often twisted. It had turned a once sweet loving girl to face a cruel reality of losing a quarter of her face.
This book had written all the struggles and many experiences of Grealy about the falls she had gone through. Lucy Grealy grew up in a large family. Apart from her parents and herself there were five more kids. They were originally from Ireland, but due to her father’s job, they had immigrated to the United States, Lucy was four at that time. When she was only nine years old, she got hit on the jaw by a ball. And from that point, her life was no longer normal like us. The pain that was on her jaw was not just sore, it last very long and she discovered tumor in her jaw, which was cancer.
Cancer! Imagine if this happened on you, how would you feel or what would you do? I would probably commit suicide. But Grealy was strong enough to stand up and had her first surgery done, which was removing part of her jaw. From the age of nine to thirty-nine, she had chemo to treat her cancer, she had surgeries to fix her face, and she had a totally different life to go through. When I read up till page 40, I was shocked and horrified, how could a girl live without a jaw. This is like a quarter of your face is missing and you have to walk around in public.
Well, this was one of the biggest conflicts she had to face. Her look had become a joke among students and strangers, the teasing and bullying were continued until she graduated high school. When she was in schools, people were looking at her with a weird and unwelcome look. Not only that, the boys always made fun of her. The saddest thing that happened once to her was, a beggar tapped her shoulder and asked for money, but when she turned around, the beggar apologized and gave money to her. This was a conflict between societies.
Another biggest conflict was among herself. She had moment that felt down and stress. Her major concern was her face. She felt her face was what made her ugly. She believed that due to the ugliness, she got teased and she could not receive love from others. She tried to tell herself that she still got the beauty inside. But as she grew up, her self-esteem was getting lower and lower. She wrote on page186, “The habits of self-consciousness, of always looking down and hiding my face behind my hair or my hand, were so automatic by now that I was blind to them. I can also see she was trying so hard to feel happy, on page181 she wrote: “every time I felt hatred, or any other ‘bad’ thought, I shooed it away with a boom of spiritual truisms. But the more I tried to negate my feelings, the more they crowded in. ” The complex inner feelings she got, the lack of love and self-esteem, were part of the conflict she had to face among herself. Even though she had to go through all those challenges, she was brave, positive and mature. I think you all know that people who got cancer will eventually loss their hair, and Grealy had the same problem starting from grade six.
When she had to go to school with a hat, there were always some boys to tease her. One time, she couldn’t stand the teasing anymore, she retorted back to the boys. So, the situation was like that: A boy called out: “Hey, girl, take off that monster mask, oppps, she is not wearing a mask. ” she responded: “You stupid dildos. ” For those of you who don’t know what dildo is, dildo is an artificial male sexual part. But the point is she was brave and didn’t let the insult get her down. She always remains positive and tells herself that: “their comments were meant to impress each other more than harm me. When she was in grade9, her father went into the hospital suddenly and was diagnosed of pancreatitis, after several months, her father passed away. Surprising, she did not even drop a tear; she was glad that her dad can go to heaven and does not have to suffer anymore. This could show she was very mature. The main element of style of this book is using a lot poetic devices. Imagery is the most often one she used. I found lots of descriptive words throughout the book; you can actually form a picture of what is happening.
Here is an example on page105, where her hair was growing back but she didn’t take care of it. “I hated the way it got oily and lanky and bunched up in tangles behind my head from lying on it so long. ” So, you can imagine how her hair was so messed up by reading the words “oily”, “lanky” and “bunched up in tangles”. There’s also allusion. For example on page 189, “Matisse’s painting seemed to be about how simple was to see the world in a beautiful way. Picasso’s were about how complex, how difficult, beauty was. ” In that quote, she made a brief reference of the two famous artists.
Other than imagery and allusion, she also used alliteration very often. For example, “swallow my own smaller heat and less substantial air. ” The words “swallow”, “smaller” and “substantial” are all started with the letter “S”. By using poetic devices, she can prove her writing skills and also grab readers’ attention. Also, I noticed that this book has no pictures. Normally, a biography would have some photos of that person, so that readers can learn more about him. But this book has no pictures at all, except for the cover and the back of the book.
For the cover, there is a girl covering her face and at the back there is a tiny picture of the author. I think the reason why she didn’t put any pictures in the book is because she doesn’t want to show her face, and she doesn’t want readers to focus on the pictures, she only wants us to focus on the quality of her writing. I have learned that the cycle of life can be influenced by fate but more importantly the message from the author is telling us that we must fight on to live the fullest of our live. Don’t give up yet because it is fate that you are born this way!
