The Fat Girl By Andre Dubus Summary

In Wil Haygood’s essay Kentucky town of Manchester illustrates national obesity crisis he turns a spotlight onto how obesity is affecting the nation. He discusses what it is like for one family in particular to deal with obesity. Haygood also writes about a study done by Jill Day, and gives a plethora of facts on the matter.

Every individual is different and unique in their own way, may it be their body size or the color of their skin. No individual is similar, which is precisely the point that Cheryl Peck makes in her essay “Fatso”. The essay portrays Peck’s view of the conflicts that she goes through in her life as an overweight person. She makes a point by point contrast to her imaginary life, repeating the phrase “I have never”, and her real life where she faces discrimination because of her weight. Peck’s use of tone and word choice highlights the purpose of her essay, which is to raise awareness about discrimination against overweight people to audiences who are thin and have not experienced any judgment from others.

Firstly, Britt uses directed paragraphs that are led by focused topic sentences. She clearly structures each paragraph by beginning each with a short sentence that sets up the different characteristic of fat and thin people being discussed. This clear structure of her essay allows the reader to easily comprehend her comparisons and take the author’s insight on certain personality traits into account when forming an opinion. In addition, the author’s use of short-structured topic sentences not only sets up the main focus of each paragraph, but it outlines and highlights the various clichés Britt utilizes in her essay. These clichés pertain to the personality traits she says fat people possess and thin people lack; these

In today’s media, being skinny has always been the ideal beauty standard. This author fought against it by showing how being fat is pretty too. The poem “Fat is Not a Fairytale” by Jane Yolen talks about the acceptance of being fat and the media’s negative outlook on it. The poem describes the wish of wanting positive fat representation rather than anorexic, life threatening waists that are considered “pretty” to media’s standards.

Schwartz’s essay is written in the satirical style using a sarcastic dry humor to appeal to its audience. He claims “if fat people are unhappy people, blame not their fat but their fellow citizens who bill them as clowns, clodhoppers [a clumsy or awkward person], cannibals, or criminals;” (Schwartz 179). This claim when read by a fat audience member may allow them to relate despite the bias because it is biased in their favor, however if Schwartz is trying to appeal to other audiences this claim comes across as not even close to what they as non fat people experience. Schwartz tells the reader to “[b]lame the kindergarten teachers, the coaches, the friends, and physicians” (179) as he claims they are the ones who start fat people on the diets that do not work. His statement does not come across as sarcasm but rather a fact he believes to be true and most people don’t see kindergarten teachers pushing children into diets. This turns off both fat and non-fat audience members because they cannot relate to or find humor in this argument. If kindergarten teachers were taken out of the statement the argument would be more believable however still not sarcastic. In an attempt to get the reader to find a personal experience to relate to his argument that fat acceptance is necessary value in our society, Schwartz says, “fat people are seen as throwbacks to a more primitive time...The modern world is passing them by.” (181). By using an image most people have seen, Schwartz effectively appeals to any audience member’s ethos. Schwartz argues that fat people are not allowed to do well in whatever they choose to do with their lives because people are too focused on their looks rather than their work ethic. He then argues that physicians are just as bad as the rest of society because, “They find fat patients distasteful… Fat

In Alice Randall’s “My soul to Keep, My Weight to Lose”, Alice discusses her developing insight into her large weight problem.

In Andre Dubus short story “The Fat Girl” it follows Louise from age nine until the time she became a mother. Louise faces the negative outlooks society has on food addictions and its affection on women. Louise’s mother is ashamed of Louise’s weight problem as she constantly mentioned Louise’s possibility of being attractive to males will be unlikely. Louise’s mother tries to monitor her food intake, but that only made Louise stash snacks in her bedroom or sneak into the kitchen when her mother was sleep or not paying attention. On the other hand, Louise’s father feels as if Louise should not be limited to what she eats. Even with the unconditional love of Louise’s Father, Louise finds it hard to overcome his sympathy and the verbal abuse from her mother and friends.

Teal Pfeifer in her short story “Devastating Beauty” discusses the effect of portraying skinny ladies/models that are wear dress size 0 or 1 as the ideal body size in most advertisements. The author points out the fact that,this can be damaging to most women, especially young women who view these adverts. The young women who see these adverts begin to feel displeased with their bodies, and a vast majority of them venture into different kinds of diet. She further emphasized that adult females are not the only ones affected, but also young girls (Pfeifer 2). According to Slim Hopes, about 80 percent of girls below the age of ten have either been on a diet before and have stated that they want to be skinner and more pretty. Now people equate skinny

Roberta Seid, in her article "Too ‘Close to the Bone’": The Historical Context for Women’s Obsession with Slenderness”, examines the positives and negatives of society outlook on obesity. Seids main argument in this article is that societies current perspective on body types are incorrect.

In Andre Dubus’, “The Fat Girl”, Louise decides to stop dieting when she finally accepts herself. In Louise’s first step of accepting herself, she recognizes that her husband’s flaws are greater than hers. Louise’s husband, Richard is a shallow and vapid character who only cares about materialistic and vain things like boats. When Louise gains weight he is unaccepting and callous towards Louise. This becomes evident when Louise says, “I never knew how cruel you were” (170). Louise realizes that Richard is a cruel and mean person when he criticizes Louise’s body and lacks the compassion that Carrie had when she wanted to help Louise. This helps Louise realize her flaw of being fat isn’t the problem, but instead it is Richard’s lack of love, compassion, and acceptance for Louise. Richard

According to the Notre Dame Department of Psychology, when fat-talk occurs, social comparisons are created, forming a cyclical cycle of negative talk starting with one participant and ending with multiple (2012). When it isn’t being talked about, it isn’t so much an issue, however, when one person brings it up it metastasizes. Salk and Maddox’s study also supports this assertion. Their experimental design consisted of elements in which fat-talk was present and measured their subjects’ interaction, or where fat-talk was absent and measured their subjects’ response. The results stated that twice as many women contributed to fat talk when others were participating than if there were no participants. Therefore, this blatant depiction of body negativity within Hollywood and the media aid the contagion that is fat-talk and body

In the poem, When The Fat Girl Gets Skinny, by Blythe Baird, the poet addresses the issue of social ideology and how these trends affect young women. Told in a first perspective point of view, the poet supports her theme by describing how teenagers are being affected, establishing a social conflict of false need to achieve trends by identifying motifs for teenager’s actions, incorporating the use of life experiences from the past to the present tense and finalizing with a shift to highlight positivity in change of habit. Baird’s purpose is to illustrate a major conflict among young women who are being affected by social idolization of being skinny. She creates a mood of hopeful in order to inspire young teenagers who are currently harming

Mary Ray Worley, member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), author of “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance,” represents the fat community to convey the biases they feel on a daily basis. She argues that everyone should embrace their size and love themselves for who they are, not the weight they carry. Worley’s article is highlighted by her use of diction, logical fallacies, and her constant relation to her personal life. However, with the excessive use of some of these techniques, she begins to create a divide in her audience between those who are overweight and the rest of the readers.

At many points of a woman’s life, they feel doubtful of their body and of their beauty because the standards that are set by the media of today, and the media of the past. One cannot look through a magazine without reading an article title that has anything to do with weight loss or beauty treatments. Even in magazines from decades ago, beauty advertisements and articles on how to be the perfect size or shape, filled the pages. The media’s influence on women’s body image has been very severe on women for decades.

The short story by Andre Dubus follows Louise from age nine up until the time she becomes a mother. It gives insight to the damage that can be done when loved ones force negative body images on young children. Louise’s mother starts her on a self-destructive path, which Louise will never overcome and continually affects her life. This is reinforced by the similar opinions of her relatives and friends who make her feel that she will only be truly loved if she is thin. The prevalent theme of Dubus’ “The Fat Girl” is the destructive way society views food addiction and how it adversely affects women.