Windows and Mirrors 8th graders reflect on the novel Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Over the past few months 8th grade students have been reading and analyzing the novel, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. The novel is set over three hundred years in the future in a dystopian world where a new government provides for everything, after a bacteria infected the world's petroleum and caused the fall and decay of cities and governments all over the world who had been dependent on oil for their survival. In this new world everyone is considered an "Ugly," until they receive the mandatory “Pretty” operation, which transforms them into the new society's standard of beautiful. After the operation, new Pretties lead a life with no responsibilities or obligations in the city on the other side of the river that divides the city. The reader follows teenager Tally Youngblood as she and her friends rebel against society's enforced conformity.

One night write assignment asked students to reflect on their reading experience and to write about something they learned from the book or something the novel made them think about that they hadn’t really considered before reading Uglies. (Window) Students were also asked to write about an idea, scene or character that they identified with from the novel. (Mirror). Following you will find some of their responses.

WINDOW RESPONSES:

What students learned and questioned while reading Uglies.

Something that I hadn't really considered prior to reading the book Uglies is how normal a corrupt society can seem to those living under it. It truly shows that sometimes the government is successful in brainwashing or making their citizens be proud of a society that is so out of whack. It is also really scary to think that these kinds of societies are and have been possible for quite some time now, so in a chilling way this is fascinating.
Reading about the fictional society in Uglies allowed me to view things in the real world that I do not ordinarily look at.

"The seemingly obvious idea that when everybody is beautiful, nobody is beautiful, was an idea that made me think while reading Uglies. Now, this idea is not groundbreaking, and it has most definitely been thought of before, but I was never aware of it until reading this novel. Close to everyone in the world strives their whole life to be the most beautiful. Not only that, but others feel discomfort when they are not the best looking in the room. People want to erase the tiny imperfections that make up your body, that make you, well, you. But the truth is, imperfections are what makes everyone unique, and when everyone's the same, and these differences are removed, is everyone really pretty? Sure, everyone is good looking now, but being beautiful is being exceptionally attractive, and when everyone's the same, this no longer exists. Being perfect is what people think they want, but it is not what they need."

"I used to think that you just had to be pretty to get what you want. But now I am realizing that this is only because of societal standards. In today's world, if you are ugly, then nothing good comes your way."

"This novel has made me think about the idea of beauty, and how defining beauty is not simple at all. Because everybody has this very similar idea of what being beautiful is, that idea of being beautiful is not something we are born with. That view on what is beautiful and what is not, comes with time, and it can change."

It made me think about how in a world where everyone is pretty that makes people that are normal look ugly.

Following Tally on her journey I learned that if everyone is beautiful, then no one is beautiful. I had never thought of it that way before and it was interesting to learn.

Something I hadn’t considered before the book is that Beauty is a standard set by society and that it isn’t a real thing if you don’t want it to be.

Beauty Practices Around the World

"Uglies made me think about the problems people face with beauty and the standards placed on them. People all over the world struggle with self confidence and their perception of themselves and this book really emphasized this problem."

Something I learned from reading Uglies is that around the world beauty is taken to such an extreme. Some people will really do anything to be beautiful.

"In class, we read this journal about a teacher that traveled to South Korea to teach high schoolers and how getting double eyelid surgery was a standard there. Beauty standards and what not I know about but it opened my eyes to how surgery just can become a norm/ expectation for people in different places. I hadn’t really considered that until reading the book."

I realized that there are a lot of things that people will do to become beautiful. This book made me realize that there are many very serious extreme beauty practices that people will use to try to be pretty.

People in real life have to conform to the beauty standard there is, no matter how much it might pain them to get it. Foot binding, lip plates, and so many more practices are all just to look good, even though it will ruin someone’s life forever.

GOING TO EXTREMES

PLASTIC SURGERY

"I had not considered how harsh the beauty standards in today's society are until I had read this book and realized just how similar it is to real life."

"I had never considered how important plastic surgery is to some groups and people."

Before reading Uglies, I had never realized how much people thought about and cared about how they looked and how it could affect society if taken too far.

Tally believes that the only way to ever be pretty or confident in oneself is to get the surgery to become a pretty. This standard can also be related to modern times as many people think that because there are people living in the world that are famous for their looks overpower their own beauty and completely diminish the uniqueness and beauty of their own physical attributes.

The pressure of fitting in.

"The novel Uglies really makes you think about people's insecurities and body image. The novel talks about this surgery that so many people wanted to get to be the perfect person. The book shed light on the constant insecurity people have about themselves and how they will fake everything about themselves to fit in."

Uglies made me think more about how beauty plays a role in society such as how it plays a role in social media. For example, people get more followers depending upon how beautiful they are, and the more time someone spends on social media the more likely they will have a negative body image.

"It has made me see that beauty does and can have a huge impact on society’s standards. I never truly saw beauty in that way, just another box to check in our day-to-day lives. However, Uglies does show just how detrimental beauty standards can be in the modern day."

The societal beauty standards are something that controls how people think of themselves, just like how Tally was taught that she was ugly from a very young age.
One thing that I knew but didn’t have such a great understanding of was how beauty isn’t always what’s on the outside that matters and that there shouldn’t be a standard for beauty.

"Beauty is not really how you look or how much you weigh, it depends on whether you act like yourself or not, and if you do what is really in your heart."

I learned that it is more important to be yourself than to look pretty.

Shay helped me realize that external beauty doesn’t matter as much as internal beauty.

After reading the novel, Uglies, I have recognized that I don’t need to fit in or please societal standards to be pretty. Instead I have learned that being diverse and having self confidence is important. Including that being beautiful isn’t only on the outside, it is on the inside as well.

"This novel made me think about how society causes people to dislike themselves, so much that they deny their own beauty. After a change in scenery and words of affirmation, a person can recognize their beauty. When she was in the city, Tally would not believe anyone if they told her she was beautiful. When Shay and David expressed their opinions, Tally realized how valuable she was. I never noticed how much of an impact someone’s surroundings have."

"Something I learned from reading the Uglies book was home much courage it takes to really be unique and stand for yourself and how mentally strong people are when they do that. I learned that being separate from others and being yourself is the right thing to do and to do what is best for you."

One thing that I knew but didn’t have such a great understanding of was how beauty isn’t always what’s on the outside that matters and that there shouldn’t be a standard for beauty.

"I never really thought about stereotypes of pretty people. Like more specifically, I guess I never really realized or cared about how a lot of people think that you are dumb if you are pretty, or that all pretty people care about is their looks. Reading Uglies kind of enforces those stereotypes with the lesions that pretties have implanted in their brains during the operation, but this over-exaggerates real life just enough to remind the reader that in real life, it is thought that pretty people are dumb when of course there is no evidence to actually prove this. So this message is seen both in the fictional novel and in the real world. I guess I kind of forgot how this stereotype still exists today."

"This book really helped me to see the importance we as a society place on beauty. It’s easy to dismiss the book as a work of dystopian fiction, but the author had to get inspiration from somewhere. Westerfield looked at how much we value beauty and compounded it with the technology of the future to create his story. Studies show how beauty can affect everything from a person’s self-esteem to their job opportunities, and in a world where becoming Pretty means everything - beauty is even more important."

MIRROR RESPONSES

Students share the ideas, scenes and characters they identified with from the novel.

A character that I identify with in this book is Shay. She is fun and adventurous just like me. She also doesn’t like to follow others and be like everyone else, she wants to be unique. Shay and I have very similar personalities and we both like the idea of being unique.

"Shay is a character that I identify with as she doesn’t care about looking pretty because if everyone looks the same then she is not unique."

I feel like I identify with the opposition to beauty and conformity, or the Smoke. I don’t care about what I look like, or how others see my body. Instead, if people see me as smart and funny, I’ll feel just as good if I looked like the most perfect person to exist. This is similar to the Smoke. Nobody there is perfect, but all have their traits. That’s what makes them perfect, not their beauty or conformity to standards, but their inner person.

" can also see a mirror with Tally. I can see similarities in how she has some insecurities about herself and how she wants to change them. I do not want to change everything about myself down to my bones, but I can relate to her insecurities."

"When Tally talks about all her flaws and how she is ugly and stuff, comparing herself to the “pretties” I related to her in some ways. Not to the same extent of being labeled as Ugly and stuff like that but the way “pretties” look is like the beauty standard I experience in our world. Comparing myself to this unreachable standard that could almost only be reached by body modifications. Thinking of your features as ugly and stuff just because it’s not society’s typical view of beauty."

"I identified with Tally the most because she is a very insecure person who wants to look like everyone else and not appear ugly to the world anymore. She is trapped in her head in the beginning of the novel worrying about looks instead of the real world around her. This resembles me in a way because I am always so cautious about my appearance and never understood the real world outside of my looks until I got with the right group of people and realized my worth."

"I can relate to the Uglies in several ways. Sometimes I feel like I am nothing compared to other girls, which is what Tally feels about herself compared to other girls. I sometimes feel like I'm not good enough for boys to like me, which is what Tally thinks, but then a boy does like her. When I look at myself in the mirror I think about what other people will think if I wear a specific thing or do my hair a certain way."

A character and a scene that I identified with was Tally when she wanted to make up for her mistakes and help the people that were captured and save them from the surgery. This reminds me of myself because whenever I make a mistake or do something wrong, because I wasn't paying attention or just because I messed up, I always want to make up for it by trying my hardest. Just like Tally had tried and is trying her hardest to save the people that were brought to the city including David's parents.

Tally has to choose between her friends and the operation. This relates to me and especially me recently because of the way I have to choose between going to a private high school with all new friends or staying with my old ones in Mendham

"I felt like I connected with Tally when she had to leave her old friends behind and go to the smoke. I have moved a couple times during my life and it has been hard to stay connected with old friends. Although I didn’t have much of a say in my moving like Tally did, we both still had to leave friends behind and advance with our lives."

"The idea of expecting people to be a certain way. I have experienced this because people expect a lot of me when I just can’t meet their expectations. In the book this idea relates to the societies expecting people to want to be beautiful and not wanting to have much of a choice. The pressure of expectations is in everyone’s life. People expect certain things for different reasons. I’ve had to experience those expectations because of what my siblings did before me. People expect me to do certain things or be better at others. I don’t always meet those expectations because they are too high. Like in the book I am different from what people expect from me."

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"I can identify with Tally because everyone wants to be pretty but sometimes a little talking can really change your mind (Shay’s conversation with her). She later finds out the true meaning of beauty and so did I."

In the novel, Shay and Tally are the characters that stay away from getting the surgery to fit in, although Tally is willing to get it, Shay has a different opinion. I can relate to both characters' points of view, and I see why they both have their reasons for their opinion on the surgery. Shay does not want to be pretty because she wants to be different from the boring pretties, and she believes that getting the surgery can change not only your physical features, but also who you are as a person. I believe in this because she is saying that what truly matters isn’t physical, but how a person is on the inside. I also understand Tally’s view on the surgery, because in today’s society, it can be challenging to stray away from beauty standards, and it is much easier to just fit in.

I can see myself being kind of like Peris. I would follow what everyone else does and try to fit in as best as I can.

"In some cases, I see Tally in myself. She is so absorbed in beauty and loves the idea of being able to be a ‘perfect’ person. She does several things to be able to try and accomplish this, including even going as far as almost–intentionally–contacting Special Circumstances to capture her friends so she can get the operation. Although I wouldn’t go as far as to hurt my friends or take a risk that big, I do understand the feeling and desire to be conventionally attractive and have others seek you out and look up to you. It can get in the way of basic things in life, which we see for Tally as it becomes her everything. Eventually, she comes to the realization that external beauty is not everything, which is also something that I think is important to remind myself."

"One thing from the novel that I connected quite a lot with is Tally’s struggle to accept what she looks like. In the beginning, all she wants is to become pretty and get rid of her past ugly self. I connected with this a little bit, as in the past couple of years is when I really started to care about what I look like, and what people think about me. And just Tally’s character as a whole is very relatable in the sense that she just wants to be pretty."

In the novel Uglies, I was able to identify with David when he first saw the city, because it was a very alienating experience for him. This is because I am not really a social media user, so any trends or popular subjects most find normal I might find really odd, interesting, and likely somewhere in between. While my experiences are drastically different, there is still a correlation between the two, because both I and David have been taken away from a certain area of society and therefore are made aghast when given details about it.
I can relate to the idea of rebelling against ideas that I don’t agree with like Shay. When I don’t agree with something I will not do it.

"I can see a mirror with Shay because I do not exactly want to change my entire self just to be pretty for other people. I would not get a huge operation which basically makes me a different person."

"I feel like I can understand Tally’s point of view. Her whole life she has wanted to be pretty, have a nice life with no worries, and be with her best friend. But suddenly, she has to give up her friend’s location so she can be pretty. But truly, Tally just wants to have something she has wanted to have her whole life and what she is being told is the right thing to do. I understand why Tally would make that decision."

I identify with Az and Maddy. When they started doing research on lesions, they dedicated their lives to it. When I find something that I am passionate about, I spend a lot of time on it. I think about it a lot and get reminded of it a lot. Similarly, Az and Maddy continued to study lesions, even after they were told not to. They were brave enough to run away and created the Smoke to prove their theory.