The Uglies #3

" 'But it's a trick, Tally. You've only seen pretty faces your whole life. Your parents, your teachers, everyone over sixteen. But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.'

'It's not programming, it's just a natural reaction. And more important that that, it's fair. In the old days it was all random - some people kind of pretty, most people ugly all their lives. Now everyone's ugly...until they're pretty. No losers.' "

Pg 131

Reaction: I think it's interesting how topic of human competition comes up again. Tally says that there are 'no losers' since 'everyone's ugly until they're pretty'. I think the thought of making society happy by having no one be better than anyone else is one of the major reoccurring themes in dystopian literature. This makes me stop and think if we really do have a problem with society today with people not being happy based on the differences of others around them. Is all of us becoming grey blobs really the only way to settle our differences in order for us all to be happy with one another?

Analysis: I think the author in a way is trying to show that society brought this on themselves much like Ray Bradbury did. Shay describes how people in the world state are almost conditioned to whats pretty and whats ugly. This shows that individual thought on beauty is completely out the window since everyone is born into 'this is what is pretty and everything else is ugly'. The 'no losers' line that the author decides to use really shows how it was society's own unhappiness with the differences in appearances that brought on a world state where everyone is pretty so therefor everybody wins. The world can only look up at the lucky few for so long before they decide to do something about it.