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.