Most of Scarry’s work examines the idea of beauty, especially in the artistic and literary sense. The first section of the reading really stood out to me, as Scarry specifically talks about beauty within “error”. Scarry writes, “So far error has been talked about as a cognitive event that just happens to have beauty–like anything else–as one of its objects. But that description, which makes error independent of beauty, may itself be wrong. The experience of “being in error” so inevitably accompanies the perception of beauty that it begins to seem one of its abiding structural features.” (Scarry, 19). I believe that Scarry is describing the beauty of growth and revision. This is something that Jesse Miller has discussed a lot during his creative writing classes. As someone who focuses a lot on writing, I find a lot of beauty in first drafts, attempts, etc. All of the errors within these first tries are products of a mind in motion, yet when people look upon their first drafts and the magnitude of errors within them, they typically cringe and think it’s the worst thing in the world. I’ve definitely thought this way about my own work, but like Scarry says, error inevitably accompanies beauty, so I’ve been trying to rework how I think of first drafts. When I look back on my previous works, especially some of the earlier sections within my novella project, I see simple mistakes and things that I wouldn’t have done now, yet I find it almost humorous. It shows the amount of growth and the knowledge I’ve gained, and I personally think it’s a beautiful thing. In terms of Mourning Picture, I think Scarry would focus on how different perspectives bring about new layers of beauty, even if some of the perspectives are imitations.
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