Fueling Insecurity Americas Race to Perfection - 1351 Words

Throughout time, people have sought out admiration and acceptance from their peers, especially based off of their physical appearance. For decades, they have spent millions of dollars on beauty products and surgical procedures to achieve what they perceive as beauty. The American Media has assured them that they will never be beautiful enough. Young girls have grown obsessed with their images and, as a result, have gone to extremes to achieve model-like appearances. Americans will always attempt to chase perfection- an impossible task. The media has had a vast influence on our lives. Everywhere we go, we are bombarded with a plethora of advertisements, screeching out at us to purchase their products. The medias peak demographic to target†¦show more content†¦These symptoms are due to â€Å"electrolyte and chemical imbalances in the body that affect the heart and other major organ functions† (NEDA). These extremes prove that â€Å"Today’s aesthetic idea is extr emely thin. . . [and] the need to be physically fit† (Brownell). How far will we go to achieve perfection? Literature is one source in which we are able to view motifs and ideals of a culture. One such example of this is in the play The Glass Menagerie. Through the play, the mother, Amanda yearns for her daughter Laura to receive a gentleman caller. One day Amanda recalls a memory of her days of courting gentleman: â€Å"One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain- your mother received- seventeen! - gentleman callers! . . . the parish house† (Williams). Amanda’s statement shows how important she believes it is to be beautiful. Without such beauty, she would not have so many young men visiting her home, hoping for her hand in marriage. Later on in the play, she purchases various new items for their home, as well as a new outfit for Laura. In this way, Amanda is altering Laura’s appearance to have her look suitable to her potential future husband. Jim, her gentlem an caller, also calls her pretty, which Laura is extremely surprised by. She is an extremely timid girl with low self-esteem. Laura can symbolize many women, who feel as though they are not good enough to ever foster someone’s attention. The standards of beauty were not always so impossible toShow MoreRelatedDeveloping Management Skills404131 Words   |  1617 Pagesappear on appropriate page within text. Copyright  © 2011, 2007, 2005, 2002, 1998 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopyingRead MoreManagement Course: Mba−10 General Management215330 Words   |  862 Pages Third Edition Reed−Lajoux and others . . . This book was printed on recycled paper. Management http://www.mhhe.com/primis/online/ Copyright  ©2005 by The McGraw−Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher