For Tuesday: Jones, "Such Perfection" (pp.97-110)

As before, answer TWO of the following in a short response--at least a few sentences, avoiding easy answers such as "she thinks it's hard because that's how it is," etc. Try to think through these responses and explain why you respond the way you do, since there are many possible answers to these questions.

Q1: Our first author travels to escape her condition, but Chloe Jones refused to travel for years because of her condition. Why does she write, "better to stay home than move closer to something beautiful that excluded me" (103)? Why would travel, or other countries, exclude her?

Q2: After the conversation with the author's annoying male friend, she asks the question, "Did I really believe...we could rewire ourselves; that we could use our intellect to unlearn our cultural training?" (101). Why does she feel it's so hard to unlearn our cultural notions of beauty? While we like to say that "real beauty is within," why does her experience teach her otherwise?

Q3: The author's relationship with beauty is a difficult one, and she claims to actually prefer the idea that she's simply "ugly," and outside the traditional norms of beauty. Why did the theories of Hume and Scarry actually prove more damaging to her in the long run? In other words, why is the idea that beauty is subjective actually a scary thing for her?

Q4: Explain the very end of the essay, when Jones has an amazing experience in Italy and makes her peace with the Western standard of beauty in Italy. When she tries to share this with an Italian woman, she is told, "It's nice for the tourists...But I'm accustomed to that view and prefer others' (110). How does she respond to this, and why does she end her essay with it? What point does it seem to make?