Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series features a society that regulates touch not through laws and mandates that can be easily broken, but by actually rewiring the brain chemistry of its citizens into so that they do not want to come into contact with the wrong people. The protagonist, Tally, goes through two such transformations in the series: from Ugly to Cute and from Cute to Special. Following a character through these transformations provides a powerful case study in the effects the operations have on a person's relationship with touch. Tally starts out ugly and in love with an ugly boy and ends up special and unable to physically express her love for anyone. As Tally's anatomy and brain chemistry are altered, her ability to relate to other people through touch deteriorates, leading her to a ritualized practice of self-harm. In the third novel, Specials, Tally, once affectionate and romantically capable, remembers only her desire to touch when she is hurt. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay When Tally is an Ugly in the first novel, she has never had mind-altering surgery. Her entire body is natural and the only obstacles to her expression of intimacy are socially programmed. When she first meets David, the rebel Ugly from New Smoke, she is completely shocked by his admission that he finds her beautiful. Before they share their first kiss, they discuss at length whether or not someone with an imperfect, unaltered face can be beautiful. For David, raised in a rebellious camp that disapproves of plastic surgery, Tally is tragically hard on herself. David tells her, “Whatever those brain lesions are, the worst damage is done before they even pick up the knife: they've brainwashed you into thinking you're ugly” (Uglies 276). For Tally, "ugly" is not exclusively a description of her physical appearance. For her, her natural face and body are signs of immaturity. She doesn't feel like her ugly body represents her true self and feels that she will be more mature and more genuine once she undergoes the operation. She is very surprised when she kisses David and has genuine romantic feelings for him. As he processes his confusing feelings, he recalls the relationships he saw among his friends in the Ugly dorms. He remembers that “Ugly people kissed…but it always seemed like nothing mattered until you became pretty” (Uglies 280). David is Tally's first boyfriend and so all her experiences with kissing and touching up to that point were second hand. Based on social programming, he never imagined that a kiss with another Ugly would seem meaningful or important. According to her, most bad kisses don't count. Remembering her kiss with David, she thinks, “this mattered” (Uglies 280). The idea that a person's "true self" requires renewal to achieve is not unique to Tally's world. In an article titled "Makeover as Takeover: Scenes of Affective Domination on Makeover TV," Brenda R. Weber discusses the messages that arise from reality shows that focus on makeovers. In many cases, the shows point out that an unattractive and unkempt physical appearance creates a disconnection between a person's true inner beauty and their appearance: on the inside, between internal subjectivity and external signification of individuality. Friends function here as a mirror reflecting mismatched ontologies. In this regard, it is the friend's responsibility and obligation to direct the woman whose appearance "is not as beautiful as her" to make-up and restyling, since sheit deals with tools that offer a necessary rectification, devices that can alter the exterior so that they more fully signify beautiful interiors (Weber 78). While Tally's circumstances are a little more extreme than a reality TV show, Tally originally has no problem with the cool operation and is tasked with "rescuing" the escaping Shay so she can be brought back to town and essentially forced into prison. 'necessary' operation. Tally's search for Shay leads her to the Smoke where David lives. Like the friend on the makeover show who must drag the "fashion victim" into the cure that is reality TV, Tally must save Shay from being deceived and avoiding surgery. Tally, like the people in makeover shows, believes that a person's "true" self is a "nice" self. Defending her interest in the cute operation, Tally says: "Maybe being ugly is why Uglies are always fighting and picking on each other, because they're not happy with who they are. Well, I want to be happy and looking like a real person is the first step" (Uglies 84). Shay and Tally disagree about the operation because they disagree about what makes them human. For Tally, being cute means being real. For Shay, keeping the face she was born with makes her more authentic. Shay tells Tally, “I'm not afraid to look the way I have” (Uglies 84). At this point in the novel, Shay has met ugly couples outside their unnamed town and believes that ugly relationships can be real. For Tally, being pretty is the only way to live a normal life or find happiness. It's a tactile act that changes Tally's mind. Hearing David call her beautiful and acknowledging her budding attraction to David fascinates and overwhelms Tally to the point that she's willing to let her guard down. When she kisses David and realizes that the kiss means something, she also realizes that she loves David in his current body and with his current face. When she touches him, she stops noticing his imperfections and begins to perceive him as a source of support and comfort. When they embrace before kissing, she finds that "his body was warm in the cold before dawn, and formed something solid and certain in Tally's shaken reality" (Uglies 279-280). The touch makes David feel permanent in Tally's life. Most of the people she was close to became Pretties before her and forgot her. The permanence created through the act of touch makes Tally feel safer than she has felt before. She decides to destroy the tracking device Special Circumstances gave her so that she, Shay, and David don't have to return to town and become Pretty. She moves toward the fire and "grabs the pendant, squeezing the sturdy metal until her muscles ache, as if forcing into her mind the almost unthinkable fact that she may indeed remain ugly for her entire life. But somehow not ugly at all." (Uglies 281).Kissing David changes Tally's perception of what it means to be ugly. Before this moment, Tally refers to being cute as looking “like a real person” (Uglies 84). Kissing and touching another Ugly forces Tally to change her ideas about what makes a person "real" and what makes them exist. The idea that touch can provide a sense of identity and individuality is not new, nor was it invented for Westerfeld's post-apocalyptic world. In The Inner Touch: Archeology of a Sensation, Daniel Heller-Roazen clarifies an ancient idea of ​​Aristotle's. He writes: "While the Cartesian cogito ergo sum derives being from cognition, the Aristotelian formation connects existence to sensation, in a chain more properly described, for this reason, as 'I feel, therefore I am' (sentio, ergo sum)" (Roazen 61). This construct definitely applies to Tally. Try tobreak out of the socially programmed mindset by listening to David's explanations of why the government is wrong and why she doesn't need surgery to be pretty. This discussion only leads to an argument until they touch and finally kiss. The moment of contact makes Tally feel real and makes her love for David feel real too. This act of contact is also an act of liberation. Tally's freedom proves short-lived when Special Circumstances finds the Smoke anyway. The Specials kill David's father and turn Shay against her Will. Since she is one of the few people alive who knows about cute brain injuries, Tally chooses to get cute and writes a letter to herself so she remembers to resist the government and take two pills that David's mother gives her and that they are said to be capable of destroying brain lesions. Since Shay never knew about the brain injuries, Tally is the only Ugly to ever be fully aware that her brain will be tampered with. Even with this knowledge, Tally's bad memories become significantly blurred when she becomes pretty. Having forgotten David and his bad life, Tally begins a relationship with a boy named Zane. Kissing him brings back memories of her bad days and helps her focus her mind. The first time Zane and Tally kiss, she remembers David for the first time since Operation Pretty. They begin to kiss and "after a long moment, the two pulled apart a little, Tally's eyes still closed. She felt his breath against her, his hand warm and soft on the back of her neck. 'David,' she whispered " (Beauties 58). At first glance, this seems to be a typical case of saying the wrong name during an intimate encounter. Tally sees it this way and is initially embarrassed by it. Instead of responding with jealousy or suspicion, Zane is very excited that Tally is remembering her life before becoming Pretty. The two realize that the excitement that comes from kissing helps remind them of their pre-Pretty existences. Once this discovery is made, their intimacy degrades a bit. Instead of kissing or touching each other to feel close as a romantic couple, they start kissing to refresh their memories. The first kiss Tally shares with Zane literally brings flashbacks of her bad life. Her memories "all seemed like millions of years ago, but she could see herself - her ugly self - kissing David" (Uglies 60). The kiss becomes a powerful tool for Tally, literally able to restore memories that had been clouded by programming. It should be noted, however, that unlike Tally's kiss with David, which in itself changed Tally's view of society, Tally's kisses with Zane are not "cures" in themselves. Her first kiss with Zane is more about remembering David than sharing contact with Zane. Furthermore, remembering that she loved an ugly boy does not liberate Tally, but instead makes her noticeably uncomfortable. She is torn between the feelings she remembers for him and the confusion about why he is no longer with her. Since Tally has forgotten why David allowed her to separate from him and become a Beauty, Tally begins using kisses to not only remember her ugly existence, but also to hold Zane and establish his presence as permanent. The kisses give her reassurance that Zane is better. for her than David, and that she is making the right decision by forgetting David. When she lived in the Smoke, she was told that she would have to take both experimental pills that David's family had given her to erase her brain lesions and then David would come back for her. When she decides that David won't return, she takes one of the pills and gives the other to Zane. To reassure yourself that you made the right decision, Tally"grabbed the back of [Zane's] neck and kissed him" (Pretties 97). She reminds herself that "David hadn't come to save her" and then concludes that David is "either dead or he shouldn't care what happened to her. He was bad, and Zane was handsome and bubbly, and he was here" (Belle 97) . In this case, touching Zane is not about experiencing contact or sharing intimacy, but about establishing Zane's permanence. Tally's life with David has been chaotically taken away from her, and as she grabs Zane and holds him close, she reminds herself that he is still here and won't have to leave her. The pills slowly begin to take effect on Zane and Tally, but nearly all the beautiful women who know about their brain injuries desperately try to erase them. Before the pills kick in, Zane and Tally realize that touch isn't enough to completely combat their mental programming. During romantic evenings together, they restore mental clarity through kissing and touching and attempt to supplement these effects with self-abuse. Zane encourages Tally to take pills known as "calorie purgers", which are usually intended to help people lose weight. Tally initially thinks Zane is worried about his size, but she soon discovers he has a different motivation. He tells her, "Hunger focuses your mind. Any kind of excitement works, really... Like kissing someone new. It works really well" (Pretties 61). Surprisingly, Zane tells his girlfriend that starving her body will help her achieve the same goals as the kiss. This moment demonstrates that both have lost the ability to allow touch to stand on its own. It becomes a means to an end, similar to any behavior that increases adrenaline. Tally spends most of the second book starving and begins to noticeably lose weight. Constant hunger allows her to focus, and kisses become a way to focus on a task she and Zane want to complete together. On one occasion, Zane asks Tally how to get down the elevator shaft and: "Instead of answering, Tally kissed him again. She couldn't remember exactly how, but she knew that if she stayed lively, it would come back to her. " " (Belle 73). The exhilaration of the kiss and the climb itself allows Tally to remember what she is doing. The intention behind this kiss, to awaken her memory and maintain mental focus, is the exact same motivation behind her potentially dangerous weight loss activity. When she takes calorie purgatories, she "felt as if a thin plastic film between her and the rest of the world had been peeled away" (Pretties 62). completely with touch as she does. Despite this, she is still able to have a romantic relationship and share contact without getting sick. In fact, touch is a sense that Tally can trust first time David as a cute boy, she is surprised by how ugly he seems. Looking at his face is strange because, through his beautiful eyes, he doesn't seem as handsome as he seemed to Ugly Tally. It's the touch that reminds her of her feelings for David . Holding him close during a hoverboard ride, "The feel of David's body... was so familiar - even the smell of him made his memories spin... He wanted to take back all the stupid, cute thoughts he had" she saw for the first turns her face" (Pretties 325). The touch restores Tally's emotional memory of David. As Bella, the information Tally receives through touch is more honest than the information she receives through the sense of sight. Although the society of Tally is fictional and no research has been conducted into her events, writers such as Étienne Bonnot de Condillac havewritten about how touch compares to the other senses. In the Traite des Sensations, Condillac states that "touch is the sense that instructs all others" (236). When Pretty Tally touches David, she stops seeing him as unattractive. The familiarity of touch, as Condillac says, informs her of what she truly feels for him and actually transforms how the other senses perceive him. Condillac believes that, as Tally discovers, senses beyond touch can be deceptive. Describing a child who is learning for the first time to use and trust his senses, he writes: "We have a prejudice that makes us assume that when we like an object in certain respects it is good in all respects. So too the boy had appeared surprised that the people he loved most were not the most beautiful" (Condillac 176). Throughout the Uglies series, Tally struggles with her feelings for David, no matter how altered her mind is and no matter how unattractive he seems to her. He is by far not the nicest person I have ever met, yet he is constantly on her mind. Like the child Condillac describes, Pretty Tally is surprised that she still has such deep feelings for David when she holds him. Before they touch Pretties, Tally's sense of sight tells her that David is very different from her, to the point of being unacceptable. She initially bases her opinions on the asymmetry of David's face and the imperfections of his body. It is the touch that makes her familiar with David again and narrows the gap between David as ugly and Tally as pretty. In Pretties, Tally learns to rediscover the truth through touch. The next operation he undergoes tests his ability to share physical affection, much less derive a sense of honesty from it. Her forced transformation from Pretty to Special is somewhat more compromising than her transformation from Ugly to Pretty. Beyond brain injuries, the difference between Ugly and Beautiful is largely appearance. Special offers are further modified. Their minds are programmed to look for differences between themselves and others. Specials are programmed to believe they are perfect. When Tally tries to get close to Zane, she becomes hyperaware of his imperfections and can barely remember why she was attracted to him. Like her first meeting with David as Bella, Tally's first meeting with Zane as Special is very uncomfortable. It doesn't seem beautiful to her anymore. To be fair, Zane is in very poor physical condition due to taking an experimental pill that was supposed to remove his brain lesions. As a special, Tally is programmed to look for imperfections in other people, and Zane has more of that than a normal Pretty would have. Both Zane and Tally hope that a kiss can force Tally out of her special mind and help her rediscover her love for Zane. Tally continues to struggle to remember the attraction she once felt for Zane. When he finds her, he hopes he can kiss her and help her remember what she felt. Zane recalls the story of how David helped Tally fight her insecurities like a bad girl and how their kiss completely altered her view of the world. Zane mistakenly believes that Tally is rejecting the love of the Belles and the Ugly because they don't seem attractive to her. In reality the problem is touch. Even though Tally is disturbed by Zane's appearance, she tries to fight her mental programming and kiss him anyway: she moved closer, pushing her hands inside his clothes. She wanted to get rid of the suit, no longer alone, no longer invisible. Arms around him, she held him tightly, feeling his breath catch as his lethal hands gripped tighter. Her senses told her everything about him: his heart beating softly in his throat, the taste of his mouth, hisunwashed smell cut by salt spray. But then his fingers brushed her cheek and Tally felt their tremor. No, he said silently. The tremors were light, almost nil, as faint as the echoes of the rain falling a kilometer away. But they were everywhere, on the skin of his face, in the muscles of his arms around her, in his lips against hers: his whole body trembled like that of a child in the cold. And suddenly Tally could see inside him: his damaged nervous system, the corrupted connections between body and brain. He tried to erase the image from his mind, but it became clearer and clearer. After all, it was designed to identify weaknesses and exploit the frailties and flaws of randoms. So as not to ignore them (Special 194). Tally's desire to shed her clothes and be completely honest with Zane indicates that she has not entirely lost her desire for contact. She describes feeling alone, even invisible, and wishing Zane would take her out of her isolation. She feels comfortable hearing his heartbeat and sensing his closeness until she touches his cheek and remembers how different he (as sick Pretty) is from her and the other Specials. Once she notices the tremor on his cheek, the realization of it overwhelms her and she can't focus on anything else. Beyond appearance, it is touch that creates the greatest barrier between Specials and the rest of the world. Tally may not appreciate touching non-specials, but she also feels uncomfortable touching Specials, including members of the group called Cutters to which she belongs. When Fausto, a special boy that Tally knew when they were both Pretties, hugs Tally, "She pulled away. The cutters touched each other all the time, but she wasn't used to that part of being a special. It made her feel even more strange that Zane hasn't joined them yet" (Special 11). Here, Tally demonstrates that she still attaches meaning to who she touches and why she touches them. She also shows that she wants the intimacy and closeness that touch with Zane used to bring, and not simply the physical sensation of touch. There is a disconnect, however, between his desire for a meaningful relationship and the way his brain is wired. She doesn't like touching Fausto, yet he is one of the few people in the world whose touch she can tolerate. Desperate to remember her love for Zane and stay focused enough to help him become special with her, Tally turns to cutting. The reasons for Tally's cutting are sometimes misunderstood in the novel. When Dr. Cable, the woman responsible for creating the Specials, sees Tally's cuts, she assumes they are from a form of masochism. He asks, "Is it really that wonderful to cut yourself? I have to look into it, next time I do Specials this young" (Specials 335). In the article “Self and Sacrifice: A Phenomenological Psychology of Sacred Pain,” Ariel Glucklich explains the limitations of understanding self-harm solely as a masochistic, pain-driven experience. He says: "[Self-harmers] cannot be reduced to perversion for enjoying something painful that they carry on their body. To understand the nature of self-inflicted harm... and its positive function, we must look at the nature of self-inflicted harm. .. person as ego and organism, and pain as a special signal within this complex organism" (Glucklich 491). Before examining Tally's personal reasons for the cut, it is important to place her in the context of her society. In Specials, Cutters don't all have the same reasons for cutting, but it's easy to make it seem that way. The entire group of Tally Specials called themselves the Cutters based on their shared habit of self-harm in search of mental clarity. All Cuttersthey have numerous cuts on their arms, and these cuts function as both fashion statements and tools of mental concentration. The pain of tearing flesh serves to create mental clarity, but the Cutters as a group seem to value the aesthetics and group identity involved in cutting more than its tactile value. Cutters often sit in a circle and pass blades before important missions so they can proceed with clear focus. One such exchange occurs between Shay and Tally when they make the decision to save Zane from New Pretty Town and convince Dr. Cable to make him special. Shay hands Tally a blade to cut herself with, as usual, but is shocked when Tally breaks a Cutter tradition. Instead of cutting her arms like most Cutters do, Tally takes the knife by the blade and wraps her hand around it. Shay says, "Wait, not your hand" (Special 95). Tally ignores Shay and continues what she's doing. After Tally cuts herself, Shay reminds her that "it's traditional to use your arms" (96). Tally never explains why she cut her hand and Shay, although confused, drops the topic. In some contexts, Shay's concern might seem like splitting hairs. Cutting your hands is not inherently more dangerous than cutting your arms. Shay expresses concern not that Tally is cutting herself, but that Tally is breaking with tradition. The way she self-harms is different from the way other Specials cut, thus eliminating the excuse that the cutting was a group activity for her. Cutting his hand instead of his arms indicates that he is distinguishing his self-harm from the self-harm in which his social group is involved. He is claiming to have feelings for a Bella and thus retains a part of her old identity from before she joined the Cutters. In an article titled “The Voice on the Skin: Self-Mutilation and Merleau-Ponty's Theory of Language,” Janice McLane argues that creating boundaries between oneself and the rest of the world is often a motivator for self-harming behavior. According to McLane, “self-mutilation helps the self-harmer restore strong boundaries between self and other” (114). In Tally's case, she is forming a boundary between herself and the only group of people she can fully interact with. She's reminding herself that she doesn't want the Cutters to be her only identity, and that wanting to reconnect with Zane is also a crucial part of who she is. Cutting her hand is an act of assertiveness for Tally, which goes against the wishes and expectations of her boss, Shay. McLane's article explains how autonomy and self-control can contribute to the attractiveness of cutting. She writes, "although self-mutilation causes harm, that harm is not caused by others. It is initiated, defined, and ended by the mutilator herself, to the specific exclusion of everyone else" (McLane 114). The scars on Tally's hand indicate feelings that only she has, which set her apart from other Cutters. Tally's control over her cut is very important to her. Since skin can be easily replaced in Tally's world, she could easily have an operation erase all of her cut scars. He is also able to completely erase the pain of the cut with medical spray whenever he wants. This adds additional layers of action to Tally's cutting behavior that 21st century cutters don't have Andrew during the Specials who has never lived in a city or heard of the operation to become Pretty. When he asks her about her scars, she says, "[Specials] only have scars if we want them to, so they always mean something. That means I love Zane" (160). Through this explanation, Tally states that the cut has begun to lose its meaningas a form of violent touching. Tally's cut, while physically painful, is much more visual than tactile. The pain felt from the cut is often secondary to the visual and symbolic meaning of the act. As Glucklich says, “Any theory of self-mutilation that treats pain as a monolithic sensation, directly linked to tissue damage, is doomed to fail. It fails first by distorting the fact that pain is a mental event, and an extremely rich one at that. mental factors that influence the perception of pain is impressive" (Glucklich 490). For Tally, the biggest mental factor is the desire to stay in touch with her feelings. The cuts themselves remind her that, deep down, she wants to touch Zane and that she plans to "save" him from being cute so he can be special and become her boyfriend again. The cut is not a substitute for touch, but it reminds her that touch is important to her regardless of how Zane's trembling skin feels. to his special body. For Tally, self-harm creates a sense of self-empowerment. Glucklich writes, "The cutting of skin and the shedding of blood are done intentionally for the reinforcement of a telos or higher purpose. The act of self-directed violence asserts the dominance of their ego over lesser bodily systems" (Glucklich 501). In Tally's case, her higher purpose is to stay in love with Zane and not lose him the way she lost David when she became Pretty. According to Zane, Tally's cutting is not a sign that she has control over her life but is instead a sign that she is losing control. He asks her, “What is it that you don't feel, you have to do it?” (Special 142). Asking what feeling she is missing, Zane identifies Tally's lack of physical contact and lack of emotional connection with others as the culprits responsible for her self-harm. For him, the behavior is not a means of empowerment, but instead a coping mechanism to help her deal with her inability to touch. Ultimately, Tally gives up cutting herself to please Zane, but she continues to benefit from looking at her scars and remembering why she created them. Their visual presence reminds her of who she is and her true desires, and may be enough without her continuing to harm herself. Tally makes no effort to hide her cuts from other people. This distinguishes Tally from most modern self-harmers, at least according to McLane. She writes, “Contrary to much medical and lay opinion, self-harmers rarely attempt to display their injuries or behavior in public, or to manipulate others through self-harm” (McLane 115). The self-harmers McLane is studying are generally sexual in nature. trauma survivors who may need to hide or cover up their trauma to avoid retaliation from abusers. Cutting in Tally's world works very differently from more common case studies of cutting in the 21st century. Tally doesn't hurt herself to hide a secret. He wears his scars openly and therefore has little to lose by self-harming to manipulate others and get what he wants. She does it in a city called Diego where she is arrested and hospitalized because she has a special body. In Diego there are no Specials. Diego's doctors see that the city of Tally has built her as a weapon and deem it unsafe to keep around. A member of the medical staff tells Tally that she will not be allowed to leave until she has had another operation to turn her into a normal Pretty. It is at this time that Tally chooses to become manipulative with her self-harm. When her special body is threatened, her scars are no longer enough to keep Tally focused on Zane. Tally recalls, "For those few moments when he kissed 257).,