Melanie T.

Vo
Pd. 1
AP English
5/23/14
Autobiography of a Face
By Lucy Grealy
1. My poor brothers, missing their home more than they could admit, felt nothing but contempt for this new
country thrust upon them. Their worst insults became Thats so American; dont be so American; how
American. If we were selfish or acted spoiled, we were becoming American. When we used up all the hot
water in the bath, that was an American thing to do. Gradually my earliest memories of Ireland transformed
into pure myth.I began a lifelong affair with nostalgia, with only the vaguest notions of what I was
nostalgic for. (34)
As a child, Grealy lived in the UK and Germany but then spent most of her life in New York. In this
passage, she begins to feel repentant for her brothers for going through assimilation in America.
She explains how the actions her family has done referred to them as American and that soon
became an insult. Doing American things started to become a routine for her (and family), but for
her personally, it washed away most of her memories from when she lived in Ireland. She creates a
metaphor (?) or analogy (?) of how her memories, which is remembered by experience, turned
into a pure myth, like a legend or fairy tale, as if it never happened. She then gives life to nostalgia,
making it sound like she had an affair with a person. I dont know what the technique is, but she
does this being in the state of ___nostalgia__ without knowing she was __nostalgic__ for. Shes
basically setting a state of mind (for herself) but doesnt add reason to it. She uses these techniques
to help the readers better understand what she was going through: adaptation to America and
confusion of reminiscence.



2. All of them were skeletally thin; knowing nothing of anorexia, I wondered what was wrong with them.
There were no visible scares or signs of illness that I could see, apart from their weight. One of them was so
thin, she couldnt walkhaving already entered that mysterious, enviable realm of the teenager, they wore
toddler-sized named bands, the only one small enough to fit their delicate and fragile wrists. (61)
In this scene of the book, shes in the hospital for chemotherapy. She saw a group of girls from afar
and began to illustrate an image for the audience. The phrases she uses such as skeletally thin, so
thin, she couldnt walk, toddler-sized named bands, small, and delicate and fragile wrists
creates a feeble tone (probably not a tone, but its a sad/delicate tone) and it also creates imagery to
help see what she saw in this situation.
3. I didnt understand how I could have overlooked the sheer joy of these things for so long, how the intricate
message of their simplicity had escaped me until just this moment. This weightless now-ness, this ecstasy
could sometimes last me all day (80)
Grealy explains how simple things in life are the cause for our joy. She includes a paradox, making
intricate and simplicity having opposing meanings, yet making and holding a truth to it, as well.
Using paradoxes goes against logic/the ordinary synonymic wording to make sense and allows
readers to figure out the deeper underlying meaning of the phrase.
4. If this type of attention wasnt always comfortable for me, it nonetheless further defined me. Most people
struggle all their lives to avoid fading unnoticed into the crowd but this was never my concern. I was
special. Being different was my cross to bear, but being aware of it was my compensation. (101)
Because of Grealys condition, she was always an outsider; but to herself, she was unique and
special. She begins by explaining how she didnt like all the attention (the type where people only
cared about her because of her illness) but it defined who she was, which was special. She then
learns that she is lucky because a lot of people would do anything to gain attention and shes getting
it because shes basically born with it. This quote is a reflection of her life: of how she was taking
attention she gained the wrong way and how it soon became a reward.




5. I felt as if my illness were a blanket the world had thrown over me; all that could be seen from the outside
was an indistinguishable lump. And somehow I transformed that blanket into a tent, beneath which I
almost happily set up camp. Not that this meant I was actually happy, not in any normal definition of the
word. (130)
This whole phrase is a metaphor/simile. Her illness being a blanket thrown over her, targeting
specifically at the world, meant that everyone around her sees her as sick or ill or in need for
help to get better. She transforming the blanket into a tent means (in my perspective) that she
built a [mental] place to allow people to go in and know the real her; to not judge her by her
medical conditions and looks but to accept her by personality. Using a simile allows the readers to
make a connection between one thing and another. It also creates imagery.
6. I listened to her and realized that she was genuinely suffering, that her feeling of ugliness consumed her as
much as mine consumed me, but she was mistaken, I thought, for there was no doubt she was beautiful. Her
problems lay in her perception. Talking with her only strengthened my conviction of the importance in this
world of having a beautiful face. (168)
In this scene, Lucy Grealy is in a hospital bed next to a woman who is about to get surgery for breast
cancer. She concludes that the woman is beautiful but she can see it in the womans eyes that she is
ugly because of her illness. And talking to the woman would boost up both of their confidences. In
this quote, she uses opposing words such as suffering and ugliness with beautiful and
strength. Using contrasting words allow readers to see both sides of a situation and let the reader
know that the author has an open mind.
7. Through them I discovered what it was to love people. There was an art to it, I discovered, which was not
really all that different from the love that is necessary in the making of art. It required the effort of always
seeing them from themselves and not as I wished them to be, of always striving to see the truth of them.
(195)
In this quote, Grealy compares love to art: love is a form or art, or that there is art in love. I can
extend this metaphor, but in this context, Grealy thinks that love is the passion, the feeling, the
theme and emotion of making art. She talks about high school and her experience as a sophomore:
she made really good friends who love her dearly and who she valued very much. Like a simile,
comparing love to art allows readers to compare between the two, and because these topics are so
positive, it causes the readers to feel sentimental towards the situation.

8. Society is no help. It tells us again and again that we can most be ourselves by acting and looking like
someone else, only to leave our original faces behind to turn into ghost that will inevitably resent and haunt
us. (222)
I cannot help but to love the truth of this quote. I feel like aiming towards a big general group, like
society, lets the reader relate to the story and situation. Making a connection to the reader
through a passage is not always an easy thing to do and it was a great idea for Grealy to do so.
Quote of the Book
The general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways genuine intelligence combines with equally
genuine ignorance. (205)
I chose this quote because it finely describes the main dilemma of the book. Lucy Grealy didnt think she
was beautiful in her own eyes because of her illness and that was the main cause for her depression (other
than her horses dying.) All she wanted was to fit in and be loved but because of her ignorance of the
acceptance of her own beauty, she wasnt happy. The book narrates a life long journey towards her
acceptance of who she is and how she was born (this exemplifies intelligence.) This quote really stuck out
to me because intelligence and ignorance are (sort of) antonyms. Therefore, its a paradox: it holds a certain
truth to it, but it doesnt just stick out like a needle; it is the readers job to make sense of it. Also using the
word genuine makes the phrase more lifelike and valuable (possibly because the word genuine itself
means real and genuine is used various times in describing jewelry and historical artifacts.)
Reflection
I absolutely loved this book because takes me through an adventure of a girl with cancer. It taught me to accept
me for who I am and who I want to become; to see everyone as beautiful as well as myself. This is the last
quarterly independent book project (thank the almighty souls on earth) but honestly throughout the year,
doing these projects helped me a lot with rhetorically analyzing papers, passages, articles, books, and for the
AP English Lang. & Comp. test. Im able to pick out and understand the content as well as put myself in the
authors shoes and think about why and how the author wrote [this] in a certain way (wow Im feeling
repetitive sorry. Its the truth). I would recommend this book to anyone, especially to the kids with depression
and illnesses, for there is hope and they should always be confident. No need to be down and have frowns.