Can't touch me!

No, I'm not about to launch into a tirade about inner beauty vs outer beauty. I'm not going to re-hash the oft-hashed statement that "beauty is only skin deep". Because really, how realistic an attitude is that? Our society certainly doesn't go to great lengths to search for the inner beauties. The overtly, obviously beautiful, they are the ones we worship. And no one can blame or deny this; the human soul delights in the beautiful.

Athena from The Children's Bach and Carrie from Stephen King's Carrie are physically unattractive. Athena's got droopy breasts, 'pearl-grey radiating stretch marks' on her tummy. Carrie is variously described as 'lumpy' and 'bovine' in appearance. But I was struck (as I read a bootlegged pdf version of Carrie) by the similarities between these two characters. Both ugly/dowdy/frumpy, both beautiful.

Athena is beautiful because she appears to be content. She is beautiful, casting her 'shy, attentive calm about the room' and she is 'perfect' because everything she does for her family, she does out of love. She doesn't have great phyiscal beauty, but the other characters can sense something emnating from her, and that elusive quality is 'goodness', and 'dignity'.

Carrie, poor thing, is tortured to three inches of insanity, but I absolutey loved the scene where *SPOILER* Tommy invites her to the prom *END SPOILER*.

"She stopped and turned, and suddenly he saw dignity in her, something so natural that he doubted if she was even aware of it." - pg 66 of Doubleday edition (bootleg version, actually)

And of course, the fact that she apparently wasn't even 'aware of it' makes it all the more precious, doesn't it?

I think what makes these two physically unattractive people beautiful isn't the fact that both characters are characters that suffer; rather its their ability to maintain their dignity in spite of the prospect of a lifetime of crushing mediocrity, in Athena's case, or a relentless assault on every physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspect of one's self, in Carrie's case.

I know this entry makes it seem as if I'm aiming for the profound here, but really, I'm not. (I'm pretty f*cking clusmsy at expressing things that leave a strong impression on me.) It's a truism that is so damn simple its one of those things that sits squarely between your eyes that you can't see it; maybe in my haste to shed labels and names I'm missing the forest for the trees. Or not. Maybe if we all see beauty as something we discern with our emotions, and not our eyes, we can fucking knock down the fucking cosmetic companies that are steadily sapping our pockets and our souls.

Labels: Beauty, Literature