The way you look should be a sin

There is a cliche that says "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and while it is up for one to decide what they deem as "beautiful", it remains pretty uniform, with slight variations as one travels around the world.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester is described almost exclusively with positive adjectives. "Elegant", and "lady-like" Her beauty both emphasizes and draws away from the severity of her crimes at the same time. Because Hester's beauty creates an aura of purity around her, the townspeople are shocked at the heinousness of her crimes. At the same time, all her charitable work is further highlighted by her radiance, creating an angel-like image, a pretty big deal in the deeply religious Puritan society.

"Beauty" in the sense of physical attractiveness can actually be scientifically calculated. It's really interesting, but even scarier, how you can assign a numerical value to one's beauty. Features developed by testosterone and estrogen, certain distance ratios between facial features, and symmetry between facial features all contribute to one's "beauty score". What's even more disturbing is being physically attractive implies more than being physically attractive.

In The Bluest Eye, the "beauty" of the doll that Claudia receives causes many people to imply that it is a "worthy" toy. In reality, it's quite the opposite. The doll has no intrinsic value, and Claudia is the only one to see this. The only purpose it serves is to "irritate" her and it seems the only fun she can get out of the doll is to destroy it. Claudia sees past the illusion that the beauty of the doll creates about its worth.

There is a cliche that says "Don't judge a book by its cover" and while it is up for one to decide what they deem as valuable, it's pretty obvious that one should actually look into another person's character to judge their character.

the people highest up got the lowest self esteem

While it may be true that those at the top of the social ladder are insecure, it is true that those at the top of the social ladder tend to give those that are lower a hard time. It is true that those at the bottom of the social ladder must stay strong to withstand all the judgement they receive, and they do.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester holds her head up, despite all the public shaming she undergoes, and her mark eventually comes to symbolize her charitability and willingness to help the sick. In The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in Heaven, Alexie's Native-american heritage is constantly commented on during his youth. Despite the negative preformed ideas about Alexie that everyone has about Alexie in their head, and Alexie's awareness of those ideas, he is still able to become a prolific, and educated writer. In "Black men and Public Spaces"Staples is aware that he is being judged by his skin color. Although he is deeply saddened by his judgers' actions, he doesn't show it, knowing that a physical appeal won't do anything. Instead, he seeks to change the world through his writing and journalism. In "The Glass Castle" Walls and her family are a bunch of migratory vagrants. However, through familial bonds and pride, the Walls family is able to keep together through other kids' teasing, and the judgement of the entire town.

Literature has shown that we should stop focusing on the higher up and their cruelties, but the lower class, and their steadfastness and resolve.

All falls down

Humans are scared of the unknown. It's why we judge, and stereotype, and plan. Planning is easy enough, but carrying out a plan is a little more difficult. It's impossible to account for all the little variables that might mess up a plan, and the volatile nature of the variables is the reason for 100% of plans not going 100% of the way they are planned out.

Everything we do is planned. I plan to go downstairs to the kitchen to get a snack, but I am stupid- a variable that I didn't account for because I am stupid- so I forget why I went downstairs and return empty handed. If I had perfectly executed that plan, I would've swiftly gotten to the kitchen, gotten my snack of choice, and returned to my bedroom with minimum energy expenditure. Instead, I returned empty handed. Even if I had remembered to get a snack there would've been other variables to ruin my plan. I could have fell down the stairs, or maybe there wouldn't be any pudding left. I might have taken one step too many, and wasted precious calories.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester and Dimmesdale's plans to flee to Europe are ruined when Chillingsworth joins as the boat's doctor. The ruining of their plan causes "Hester's strong, calm, steadfastly enduring spirit almost sank,"(Hawthorne 241). For Dimmesdale, it makes him feel like there's no other way out, so he publicly confesses to his sins, and swiftly proceeds to drop dead.

The bigger a plan is, the more variables there are, and the bigger the consequence is when it gets messed up. You could trip on your way to school and dirty your sweater, or you might crash and die on a plane ride to Disney Land. Either way, it's pretty messed up.

What's a king without a crown

In Deborah' Tannen's "There is no unmarked woman" piece, one of the traits she discusses that marks women is their hair. She says that since women don't have a standard hairstyle, every hairstyle is seen as different, which removes a woman's "option of being unmarked". While I do agree that women's hairstyles mark them because there is no set standard, I feel like its unfair to say that men always have a choice to be unmarked.

When I look at all my friends hairstyles, none of them look the same. Bangs, curls, fringes, sideburns,  and even the locations of their parts mark them.

Tannen also treats being marked as if it is always a bad thing. I like to think my hair used to be pretty marked. Marked enough to have 4 of your teachers tell you you're unrecognizable after a haircut, and have 3 of your friends actively avoid you because they don't know who you are, until another friend tells them.

I just find it pretty mind blowing that I had some friends that didn't know what my face looked like, but could still recognize me perfectly, because of my "mark".

Everybody is marked in some way. Old people are marked by their age. Rich people are marked by their riches, fit people are marked by their fitness. Every mark tells a story, but it's up to those that are marked to decide what story the mark will tell.