Scarry focuses on the concept of beauty throughout this piece. It’s not just beauty in the sense of the physical world, but the creative, philosophical, and emotional side of the world as well. While I was reading, I was jotting down notes and quotes that stuck out to me. One specific quote in general is one I keep circling back to. Scarry says, “It may be useful to record the error, or the revision, in as much detail as possible because I want to make claims here about the way an error presents itself to mind, and the accuracy of what I say needs alternative instances to be tested again” (pg. 11). I immediately thought of my own revision for my final project. Scarry continues to dive into what perception can do in either overcrediting or undercrediting. When I think about my original project, I was extremely proud of what I created, but looking back at it now, I can see all my “errors” or modes of construction that need improvement. This raised the question “Is there beauty in error or does error create opportunities for more beauty?” For me personally, I think it is a cycle. With my own project I see several errors that I could transform to make beautiful or at least expand upon. At the same time, I think that those errors create an innocence of beauty that I did not appreciate when I originally wrote my piece. It is similar to Scarry referring to palm trees and how she didn’t recognize or acknowledge the beauty behind them originally. That’s how I feel with my first draft of my old assignment. I was extremely harsh and now I can look at it in a different light. This would be an example of my old self forwarding these pages to my now self. I can now revise and deep dive into the next steps necessary. When it comes to the Mourning Picture, I think Scarry is saying that beauty is everywhere. It may be a form of imitation, but people’s perceptions make it their own. Therefore, it would not be a form of copying, but making something original out of the perception of beauty when others see something for the first time.
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