"-You're Tally, right?"
"Yeah."
"Aren't you the one who's going to turn today?"
"That's me, Shorty."
"So how come you look so sad?"
Tally looked the new ugly in the eye. "Because it all comes down to this: Two weeks of killer sunburn is worth a lifetime of being gorgeous." (96-98)
In Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, Tally Youngblood is an 'ugly' three months away from her 16th birthday, or rather the day she becomes a 'pretty' by undergoing an operation like all uglies do. Tally is excited to finally look like all the large-eyed, breathtaking pretties but then Tally meets Shay, a girl with the same birthday as Tally. A week before their birthdays, Shay confesses that she doesn't want to be a pretty, she wants to live as an ugly for life in a secret community called the Smoke, but Tally refuses to join her. On the day of her operation, Special Circumstances promises Tally that if Tally doesn't find the Smoke to the best of her ability, Tally will never become a pretty. Tally agrees to the bribe and she sets off for the Smoke wearing a heart necklace that would all Special Circumstance to find her once activated by Tally. Once in the Smoke, Tally realizes that she is accepted as an ugly (and David even thinks she's beautiful) and that the operation doesn't just change you physically, it also takes out your will to rebel against the society. Knowing this, Tally decides to burn her pendant without knowing that the pendant will activate itself when damaged. The next morning the Smoke is taken over by Special Circumstances but Tally escapes and finds David, promising him that she will help rescue the Smokies.
One of the life passages in Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, occurs when littlies reach a specific age. Once old enough, littlies are removed from their home with their parents and moved to Uglyville, where all teenagers up to 16 live together in dormitories. This isolation from the comforting influences of parents makes all of the teenagers (whose brains haven't even developed enough to make choices for their own) vulnerable to any sort of authority figure. If teenagers are told at this point (which they are) that this society allows them to live unlike their made-to-sound horrible ancestors, the Rusties, who used metal for everything and burned fossil fuels for energy, the teenagers will most likely appreciate not having to live in such a dirty and labored society. This in turn makes the teenagers highly susceptible to agreeing to conform to a society that may not even be the best idea, due to one of the unknown operations done in the surgery. After agreeing to conform, people in this society lose any sort of thinking process against the society. Unless the pretties are chosen to be surgeons, researchers or a member of Special Circumstances, they will never be given the chance to decide if their life is what they truly desire. This is the case for most people who conform. Once sucked into the system, swimming against the current is a difficult process and near impossible to overcome without help or guidance.
One of the life passages in Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, occurs when littlies reach a specific age. Once old enough, littlies are removed from their home with their parents and moved to Uglyville, where all teenagers up to 16 live together in dormitories. This isolation from the comforting influences of parents makes all of the teenagers (whose brains haven't even developed enough to make choices for their own) vulnerable to any sort of authority figure. If teenagers are told at this point (which they are) that this society allows them to live unlike their made-to-sound horrible ancestors, the Rusties, who used metal for everything and burned fossil fuels for energy, the teenagers will most likely appreciate not having to live in such a dirty and labored society. This in turn makes the teenagers highly susceptible to agreeing to conform to a society that may not even be the best idea, due to one of the unknown operations done in the surgery. After agreeing to conform, people in this society lose any sort of thinking process against the society. Unless the pretties are chosen to be surgeons, researchers or a member of Special Circumstances, they will never be given the chance to decide if their life is what they truly desire. This is the case for most people who conform. Once sucked into the system, swimming against the current is a difficult process and near impossible to overcome without help or guidance.