What Did People Do for Beauty?

Author's Note: This is my response to the short story "Ribbons" written by Laurence Yep.

It seems that people do a lot of crazy things to be beautiful. Society makes an image of what modern-day beauty is and people change themselves to be acceptable in society. In "Ribbons," the grandmother's feet were bent in a weird way when she was young so she would look more "beautiful." Back then, the mothers of a five year-old would bend the toes back the toes on their feet so their feet were smaller, and in society then, it was better for women to have their feet that way. Today, women do things to make them more pretty such as piercing their bodies, wearing a lot of makeup to conceal their face, and using damaging products on their hair to make their hair more beautiful. That is similar because in China, mothers bent their daughter's feet back just to make them pretty so they could marry a rich man, which meant having wealth back then in China.

Grandmother didn't want anyone to see her feet because she didn't want anyone feeling the pain that she felt. The daughter didn't understand why she was so crabby at first, but then when she saw her feet, she asked her mom why her grandmother's feet were like that. The mom told her the story, and finally the main character telling the story understood why she didn't want anyone to see. The grandmother didn't like seeing her granddaughter's ballet shoes because they reminded her of the ribbons they used to tie their feet that way, so she didn't like the shoes because they reminded her of the pain. The title is significant to the story because it's ribbons, and the ribbons were used to cause the grandmother pain.