In Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face, Lucy constantly deals with self approval issues within herself about being normal because she does not classify herself as being beautiful. At the age of nine Lucy and her family discovers she has a rare form of cancer called Ewing's sarcoma in her jaw from a doctors visit from a school incident. The specialist informs Lucy and her parents that she has to have surgery to remove the cancer from her jaw. After the surgeons remove the cancer from Lucy's jaw, they informed her and her parents that she would have to take chemotherapy treatments to treat it. At the age of 9 Lucy does not quite get the seriousness of her condition but understands she is different because of what the school kids say about her.…show more content… Lucy's belief that normal people always feel free and accepted points to her assumption that looking beautiful or normal naturally produces self confidence. "My sister and her friends never had to worry about their appearance, or so it seemed to me, so why didn't they always feel as bold and as happy as I felt that night" (Grealy 120). Lucy assumes that her sister and friends have the natural confidence she doesn't because they have nothing to hide or be ashamed of from their appearance. Lucy lacks the self confidence she should possess based on what she think others see her as instead of how she see herself. Lucy's sense of beauty is defined on everything she is not and everything she wants to be. Grealy feels she can not achieve it naturally herself because she has to keep having surgery to get closer to her expectations of being beautiful. If Lucy gets the face surgery she accepts as being beautiful, then she will have the confidence that she describes normal people to have. Once Lucy feels this sense of beauty she has been searching for within herself, then she will have the capability to show her face without feeling
