Rough Draft

As a society, we are out of control, spending majority of our time obsessing over our physical appearance, and worldly possessions. We have become a society that defines our lives by the amount of things we have and how we look. The media fills our minds with unrealistic images of beauty and the notion that you can never be” too much rich or be too thin”, and the reality is this information tends shape ones perception. What is the true meaning of beauty? Adolescence place value on peer acceptance for approval, while social messages about cultural norms influences them. Beauty is something that comes from within, it being comfortable with whom you are.
In the short story “The beauty Treatment” by Stacy Richter, the writer describes a situation of teenage girls acting out violently. "The Beauty Treatment" is narrated by a teenager who has had her face slashed by her best friend. There is a type of girlfriend rivalry that is similar to any high school, but with Richter's ability quickly change direction of the story from one place to another and surprising language, this story becomes an excellent story of empathy and forgiveness. The voices of the narrators are very over the top and intense, but at the same time due to how specific they are it seems as if they could be sitting right on the side me, telling me why they are fighting with their best friend or why they are still friends. This story is kind of bizarre in a way because of the power of the narrator’s voices and the clear picture of every detail while telling the story. The narrator’s best friend gets cut just because she likes a musician. Even though at the beginning of the story it seems a bit unrealistic and fantastical, it is believable, at least what happened in the context of the story.
Both narrators’ ‘accentually’ reveal their selves throughout the course of the story. They are very honest about others within their circle and about themselves to an extent. The narrator from “Beauty Treatment”