Truth and Beauty Essay

Ann Patchett’s Truth and Beauty can most simply be summed up as the life of Lucy Grealy and her lasting impact on people. Patchett writes from a colloquial sidelines point of view meaning Grealy is depicted as a type person who is like an unyielding force. She was a force that gained momentum as it swept up more followers and Patchett became subject to this overpowering presence that Lucy effused. Patchett uses letters from Grealy to explore a part of this invisible attraction which Grealy seemed to radiate. The message derived from Patchett’s book is summarily this: Lucy Grealy was a unique woman with exceptional talents with her own set of qualities that made her different. One aspect that Patchett …show more content…

The overall impact of this on Patchett’s message is that another side of Lucy is revealed which advances the main message. Again, the main message being that Lucy was a unique person. Continuing on past the quote, she pretends to be in a concentration camp, “or that I was going too trip a landmine at any moment. I know it sounds morbid, but it helped me enormously.” (93) Grealy even admits that it was a strange and “morbid” thing to do. Letters from Grealy serve mostly to further develop her characterization in Truth and Beauty. Patchett often writes of all the shenanigans that Lucy will get into, for instance when she got into an argument with a man about a woman’s orgasms and later she showed that man that a woman can have an unlimited amount – “and I showed him 17 times.” (85) All these stories and recounting demonstrate how Lucy must have radiated a certain special atmosphere that attracted people to her and caused them to follow her in whatever she was bent on doing. The ending of Truth and Beauty is fitting because Ann tells how she was wrong to assume some of the things that Lucy had assumed. She believed nothing actually terrible would happen to her and that she would always be able to resolve the problem. That up to the moment of her death Lucy had a certain quality that allowed her to distinguish herself from others but also cause people to invest emotional and physical time into her. Patchett was mistaken