Pavlich autobiography of a face

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Lucy misses a great deal of school but continues on through college, initially planning to attend medical school but eventually settling for poetry. The same applies to wealth, which, per se, is meaningless, but stands in for other things, desirability, power, freedom. She is unable to go out in public without enduring the cruel taunts of other children and the stares of complete strangers.

Eventually, Grealy decided that she would become deep. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Autobiography of a Face is Grealy’s memoir of her experience, inner and outer. Obsessed with her face, Lucy believes that fixing her disfigurement will fix all of her other problems as well. With the exception of the prologue, the memoir employs a linear narrative, detailing Grealy’s life from early childhood into adulthood.

The prologue begins several years after Grealy’s cancer treatment, with an account of an adolescent Grealy helping a local stable with a ‘pony party’ in a nearby suburb.

What people want is to be seen as graceful, to be accepted, to be loved, to be appreciated. However, several operations are unsuccessful and Lucy becomes convinced that she will never know love.

Throughout her struggle, Lucy finds solace in fantasies and in spending time with horses, creatures she values for their nobility and the fact that they do not judge her by her appearance.

She undergoes an operation to remove half of her jaw, which is followed by two-and-a-half years of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. However, as the book draws to a close, she comes to terms with her life, begins questioning her understandings of physical beauty, and ultimately realizes that her issues have their roots in her low self-esteem and negative self-image.

Still convinced that her “ugliness” means that she will never form a romantic relationship, she decides to try and move beyond the seemingly petty fixation on physical beauty to focus on higher, nobler forms of beauty instead. Through this, she learns how to accept herself and begin her life properly, with her new face and a new outlook.