Lao Tzu once reflected: "The truth is not always beautiful, nor are beautiful words the truth" (Tzu). Although Grealy idealizes the phrase "truth is beauty, beauty truth" from John Keats's poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn", the reality of his unfortunate situation reflects Tzu's ideology rather than Keats's due to the fact that instead of finding a beautiful truth Grealy finds herself trapped in a reality that she believes to be the antithesis of beauty. While Grealy longs to rebel against society's ideals, she finds herself stuck in a perpetual cycle of depression and desire for conformity, believing that social acceptance, within a society that measures a woman's worth based on her physical appearance, will make her worthy of love and then, after discovering that no one can meet her unreasonably high expectations of love, she is inevitably dragged into despair. Grealy attempts to rise above the superficiality of society and take on a more transcendental interpretation of beauty, however he continually finds that his actions fail to reflect his ideologies as he attempts to assimilate into society so he can find love and acceptance . Grealy ultimately comes to believe that beauty is composed of a conglomerate of factors that he dramatizes through both his writing and his lifestyle. Grealy uses compelling pathos, penetrating allusions, and powerful personification as well as a sanguine yet cynical tone to reinforce the validity of his claim that beauty is a reflection of society's perception of a person, as well as a manifestation of one's feelings of self-worth. In his memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Grealy employs the use of engaging pathos and an auspicious tone to accentuate the fact that beauty comes from a c... middle of paper... of society and one's perception of beauty. When Grealy sadly laments, "the world of love wanted nothing to do with me," she personifies a "world of love" to demonstrate that because she saw herself as worthless and because society reciprocated her feelings, Grealy she felt completely alone (Grealy 124). Grealy feels alone because she identifies beauty with happiness and love and because her beauty is defined by her feeling of worthlessness which is corroborated by society Grealy identifies as ugly. Using insightful personification and an optimistic yet critical tone, Grealy is able to effectively demonstrate that his claim that beauty is the manifestation of both society's and the individual's perception of their own beauty is valid, demonstrating that his definition of beauty is applicable to the situation. of practically every person belonging to every culture.