Definition Essay Beauty

It’s an argument we’ve all heard before and there are more than a few books that have tackled the subject. But what’s different from even the last three years is just how widespread the media has become. Today’s teens spend an average of 10 hours and 45 minutes absorbing media in just one day, which includes the amount of time spent watching TV, listening to music, watching movies, reading magazines and using the internet. This is a generation that’s been raised watching reality TV – observing bodies transformed on Extreme Makeover; faces taken apart and pieced back together on I Want a Famous Face. They are, as Tina Fey puts it, bombarded by "a laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful.”

What is the definition of beauty? Webster’s dictionary says “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses”, but to some people true beauty comes in fire. Such is it with the society seen in Fahrenheit 451. As Shown during the course of the novel the differences of character, acts, and opinions between Montag and Captain Beatty burn brighter that the kerosene drenched houses at night.

The media portrays these unrealistic standards to men and women of how women should look, which suggests that their natural face is not good enough. Unrealistic standards for beauty created by the media is detrimental to girls’ self-esteem because it makes women feel constant external pressure to achieve the “ideal look”, which indicates that their natural appearance is inadequate. There has been an increasing number of women that are dissatisfied with themselves due to constant external pressure to look perfect. YWCA’s “Beauty at Any Cost” discusses this in their article saying that, “The pressure to achieve unrealistic physical beauty is an undercurrent in the lives of virtually all women in the United States, and its steady drumbeat is wreaking havoc on women in ways that far exceed the bounds of their physical selves” (YWCA).

One of the categories in being the ideal woman is being conventionally beautiful because, according to the media, a significant portion of a woman’s self-worth rests in appearance. This can be seen through women’s magazines in particular, which promote altering one’s appearance leads to the significant improvement of one’s “love life and relationships, and ultimately, life in general” (Bazzini 199). Therefore, the media presents a direct relationship with beauty and success: the more attractive a woman is, the better her life will be. Thus, a woman must the take initiative to look beautiful in order to be successful. Through the repetitive exposure of the same type of image in the media, what society considers beautiful often resembles a definitive checklist.

Death is not only an end to one’s life, but a new beginning to their afterlife. The new start in the afterlife shows that everyone has a chance to share their dreams with others. “X. I Died for Beauty” by Emily Dickinson, represents not only how one dies for what they believe in, but the courage to strive for goals and how the secrets they have, die with them. Unfulfilled goals don’t just end after one is deceased, but lives on to share with others in the afterlife, even when the goal is misrepresented. Relinquishing hope towards a “scarce” dream, “d[ying] for beauty”, others often “lain” the goal as something far from the “truth.”

In 1.6 of Enneads, On Beauty, by Plotinus discusses the common questions surrounding beauty. Such as, what is it? Why are we, as humans drawn to it? Why are some things thought to be beautiful while some are not? And, how do we know when we see beauty, or something ugly?

According to Kant however, this is impossible as the judgment of beauty is not a science. Calling an object beautiful is like saying, the object makes me feel happy, uncomfort-able, nostalgic, frightened and so on. It is an announcement of a personal emotion rendered in reaction to the object. For example, an image of a child holding a gun may disturb me, due to connotations that the two things together hold (death, corruption of innocence, child sol-diers). These connotations however are deeply societal and reflect my experience of objects, imagery and their associations.

Beauty can be found almost anywhere. But what does it mean? You can see it in artwork and hear it through music. A certain talent or creation can be beautiful also. Webster’s dictionary states the definition of beauty as being “the qualities in a person or a thing that give pleasure to the senses or the mind,” therefore, people usually associate beauty to someone’s physical appearance.

The dictionary presents the definition of beauty as a combination of qualities such as shape, color, or form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. Beauty is actually perceived differently by every person; many people perceive beauty as the way one looks, but many others associate beauty with how a person acts and treats other people. This quote from Plato states that, “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.”. This quote means that not one person has the exact same idea of what beauty is.

Beauty is not just what someone sees, but beauty is anything that is appealing to oneself. Today’s society has made beauty into this unappealing idea, such as if you do not look a particular way you are not thought to be beautiful. Beauty is so much more than what is appealing to the eye. Beauty is also very appealing to the mind, the body, as well as the spirit. Beauty can be one’s looks, personality, or even habits, which also can have different forms.

So what actually makes a person beautiful? When asked to describe beauty, external traits immediately comes to mind. Unique facial features, body figures and race complexion is the appearance of a person and is also embedded in our brains as beauty. Society has a set new standard to what beauty means and exemplifies. This article states, “The pressure to look young and beautiful is at an all-time high,

Why Philosophical Ignorance Isn’t Bliss To each his own; different strokes for different folks; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. All three of these phrases, common adages in society, serve to underscore the diversity of tastes amongst people, whether our preference is for ice cream over cake, black over gray, or cats over dogs. However, the last statement, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” an explicitly post-modernist belief, does more than seemingly state the obvious. Rather, it declares the much deeper viewpoint that individuals dictate in their own terms what beauty is rather than recognizing beauty as an intrinsic quality. But do all who use this phrase view beauty in this light and believe this phrase to mean the same thing?

I just typed in the search engine the word beauty forgetting to ask for the definition. What I found was actually very disturbing. I looked at the results Google gave me and it was first was advertising for beauty products and makeup. Then it showed some images of “beauty” which were almost all the same in appearance. They were all of women with perfectly smooth skin, pale but with striking features.

If you search in a dictionary or google the definition for beauty, it would say “a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.” The definition gives beauty a mediocre meaning, and it can never do this word justice. Each and individual has his or her own perception and taste in what is beautiful. It can be an emotion, an object, a human, a place, a scene, a thought and absolutely anything. Like beauty, the word everything is defined in simple words, that are “all things”, but it is in all existing materials and the abstract.

Beauty is defined as a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. Shakespeare expressed a similar sentiment in Love's Labours Lost, 1588: “Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues.” Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard's Almanack, 1741, wrote: “Beauty, like supreme dominion Is but supported by opinion.” David Hume's Essays, Moral and Political, 1742, include: "Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them." These phrases show that the idiom Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder is somewhat true, but does not answer why women do so much to be considered beautiful.