Perfect Dress by Marisa de Los Santos and Beauty by Tony Hoagland - Essay Example

An Analysis of Two Poems: “Perfect Dress” by Marisa de los Santos and “Beauty” by Tony Hoagland Poems are often regardedas difficult to understand due to their confusing and vague literary styles. According to the Undergraduate Writing Center of the University of Texas, “learning the elements and poetic tools used to build the poem will help understand and analyze poems.” The elements and poetic devices that need to be examined are the poem’s context, language, imagery, form and syntax. In this paper, the poems “Perfect Dress” by Marisa de los Santos and “Beauty” by Tony Hoagland will be analyzed for their similarities and differences, specifically in language, theme, imagery, speaker, tone, construction. “Perfect Dress” is a poem that reflects the disposition of the speaker on how she sees herself as a woman and her desire to become beautiful in ways that she thought impossible for an ordinary girl like her. She sees herself as plain-looking, full of imperfections and that she lacks the physical attributes of a dazzling lady as models on the magazines emulate. Somehow, the speaker believes that finding the perfect dress will reveal her hidden attractiveness. In the first stanza, the author writes about discovering “a blue confession in smudged, erasable ink” (de los Santos 444) stating about the longing of a girl to become miraculously beautiful all of a sudden. This sets the initial tone of the poem as sad since the blue color is associated with unhappiness and melancholy (Oxford Online Reference). Also, the revelation written in erasable ink connotes the idea that the fantasy of becoming pretty is something that the author wishes to deny but consistently occupies her thoughts until she got older. The speaker was able to relate to the journal that she’s reading, admitting that every girl wants to become beautiful as society dictates, which is measured by perfect physical appearance like stunning face, gorgeous hair and shapely body (de los Santos 444). The speaker further shares her own frustrations and body issues, dwelling on her desire to have the elegant features of tall, thin models. More so, she believes that finding the perfect dress will reveal her inner magnificence, the hidden splendor that she aches to unleash for others to see as she did when she was fifteen. She painstakingly sought for a dress that will bring out the beauty in her. The speaker trusts that finding impeccable attire, though cheap, will bring an ordinary miracle to straighten her crooked sense of body image and for other people to finally acknowledge her essence of beauty (de los Santos 444). On the other hand, “Beauty” by Tony Hoagland is a poem on how a sibling is appreciating his sister’s beauty amid the illness that corrupted her physical appearance. Observing his sister throughout childhood to adulthood, the speaker became the vehicle in witnessing the growth of his sister in becoming a beautiful person from a shallow individual. The poem defines true beauty as unbounded by outward features, something that is attained from the inner goodness of a person and how she carries herself. The story started with the speaker describing the change on his sister’s appearance as an effect of medication for her illness, “caused tiny vessels in her face to break, leaving faint but permanent blue stitches in her cheeks” (Hoagland 18). This graphic account on his sister’s face’s transformation is detailed and straightforward, sending a clear idea on how his sister’s pretty face is permanently damaged. His sister immediately resigned to the idea of being beautiful, readily accepting the loss of the very thing that she’s known for throughout her life. Initially the speaker’s sister admitted liberty, as if being attractive is a liability that she endured for several years. However the speaker sensed his sister’s regret as the idea of losing something that is looked upon as a gift suddenly dawned into her. Looking back, the speaker recounted the superficiality of his sister’s beauty as nothing but a physical characteristic that made her popular and eye-catching, remembering her in high school as she “perfected the art of being a dumb blond” (Hoagland 18). This line designates the speaker’s sister as a person who manages to keep herself attractive for the sake of gaining approval and acceptance from society while abandoning the need to improve her character and personality. In addition, the sister of the speaker’s preference of men and her rules in choosing them upon her adult years remained shallow, as she never really bothered to consider their personality or their true interest in her instead she focused only on how they looked. Then she realized sadly that her days of being pretty and unwise are gone, leaving her empty and unloved while the world and all the other beautiful things move on. On the last stanzas, the sister finally accepted her fate, realizing that her beauty, as well as her shallow disposition in life is all gone. With this she understood that life for her must also go on, that she can now live her life fully without the burden of her attractive physical being, which the speaker believes as what made his sister truly beautiful. The two poems featured on this paper are similar in theme, language and imagery. Both “Perfect Dress” and “Beauty” deals with the physical or outward appearance of a woman which society dictates. They emulate a culture where beauty is measured by picture-perfect images of unblemished models and celebrities wearing fashionable clothes. With this, most women find themselves as ugly, ordinary individuals lacking the significant traits that will gain them popularity or acceptance. In the “Perfect Dress”, the speaker mentioned seeing “a magazine claiming to know “How to Find the Perfect Dress for that Perfect Evening” (de los Santos 445) which explicates the pressure that women feel, making them follow a certain mold to fit in, thus leaving them disappointed when they failed to do so. “Beauty” also shows this norm as the speaker recounts his sister “watching her reflection in the mirror, sucking her stomach and standing straight” (Hoagland 19). Women are subjected to fake their exterior form, suffer uncomfortable positions or have an unhealthy diet just to enhance their appearance and look pretty. Moreover, the language used in the two poems is similar in terms of word choice and meaning. Both poems are written in an informal and conversational way, engaging and written in English. The speakers seem to directly tell a story, straightforward and descriptive. Although they differ in speakers, where “Perfect Dress” refers herself as the first person and “Beauty” denotes the speaker to be the second person, both poems feature speakers with recollection of things that they have observed or felt from the past and what they thought about it. However, the two poems differ in the rhythm and construction used in delivering the stories. “Beauty” is written in a more identifiable rhythm wherein the piece is arranged in the meter and same number of syllables on most lines. Meanwhile, “Perfect Dress” is arranged in an identifiable rhythm but the stresses of syllables vary in each paragraph. The imagery in the two poems is also alike by means of constructing the poems’ theme, tone and purpose with the use of visuals and sensory images as well as symbolism. In the “Perfect Dress”, the images are mostly literal and concrete with some figurative descriptions. For instance, the speaker describes her vision of beauty with “cobalt-eyed, hair puddling like cognac”, labels runway models as “leggy, otherworldly as a mantis, to balance a head like a Faberge egg on the longest, most elegant neck” and refers to the perfect dress as to something that is made of “polyester satin, machine-made lace, petunia- and Easter egg-colored, brilliant and flammable” (de los Santos 444-445). The visual and sensory depiction of the speaker is high and rich in evoking sensory experiences. In return, the reader is given a wide berth of imagination in understanding the literary piece and the lesson that the author is trying to convey. It is as if the reader is seeing what the speaker is talking about; sense what she wants to make the reader feel and condition the reader’s mind in the impact of the poem. The speaker also uses the words suddenly, elegant, perfect, sublime and miracle in the poem to highlight the emotions that she wanted to express throughout the piece. Suddenly and miracle denote the almost impossible longing of a woman to become beautiful in an instant. The words can be felt throughout the poem that the reader will tend to accept that becoming beautiful and perfect is unmanageable. Elegant and perfect are associated within the whole poem as something that defines the women exuding beauty and grace, the very thing that the speaker hopes to achieve one day. The word sublime was used at the last stanza of the poem, making the tone a little hopeful in a false way towards the end. “Beauty” also presents literal and concrete images with little figurative portrayals. Unlike “Perfect Dress”, Hoagland’s poem concentrated in providing a more literal approach in relating the story than giving out overly embellished words. For example, the speaker described his sister as a dumb blond because she spends “recess on the breezeway by the physics lab, tossing her hair and laughing that canary thrill which was her specialty” (Hoagland 18). Simply put, the sister is loud and flirty during high school where she was popular. Another line for imagery was when her high school boyfriend plays with her hair “with a pained expression in his eyes wrapped his thick finger over and over again in the bedspring of one of those pale curls” (Hoagland 18). The speaker is trying to give an upfront image of how Johnny looked when he realized that his girlfriend’s hair was painstakingly styled and arranged in order to look pretty. The author only used a little figurative imagery throughout the poem specifically when he described the spring season which is exact opposite of what the sister is feeling at the loss of her beauty. Although the poems “Perfect Dress” and “Beauty” have the same theme, they differ in tone. As stated earlier, “Perfect Dress” started with a sense of longing and sadness for something that seems too impossible to achieve but it ended with a flicker of false hope that somehow that dream will come true. Bitterness and obscure sense of beauty has motivated the speaker to keep on fantasizing an illusion amid the reality that a person’s beauty cannot be measured by mere societal expectations. On the contrary, “Beauty” started with a tone that could be initially considered as sad since the sister of the speaker has lost her valuable asset. Yet as the story progressed, the speaker has redeemed the sad piece in becoming a happy one since his sister’s beauty has been the reason of her being superficial and incapable of love and being loved. With genuine acceptance and hope, the speaker believes that his sister has finally transformed into a beautiful person inside and out because she has finally realized its real meaning and importance. As such, “Beauty” is stronger and more satisfying poem among the two. From the message that the piece conveys to the reader to the poetic tools analyzed in this paper, it shows that Hoagland’s poem is consistent with clear and straightforward descriptions that can be easily understood, well-executed imagery and construction and a tone that fully captures the reader’s emotions. Works Cited “Analyzing Poetry”. Undergraduate Writing Center. University of Texas, n.d. Web. 8 May 2013. “Couture.” Oxford Online Reference. Oxford U Press, 2010. Web. 9 May 2013. Hoagland, Tony. “Beauty.” Donkey Gospel. T. Hoagland. 18-19. Graywolf Press: St. Paul, Minnesota, 1998. 18-19. Print. Santos, Marisa. “Perfect Dress.” An Introduction to Poetry. X.J. Kennedy and D. Gioia. 13th ed. N.P.: Longman, 2010. 444. Print. Read More