Going to Phipps on Thursday made me begin to consider, as we have been considering in class, what beauty really means. I thought it was interesting/funny that Hong immediately assumed that one of the stranger looking plants was fake. In our society, do we actually appreciate natural and real beauty? Is it too hard for us to assume that beauty can develop on its own, untouched by anyone else, with all of the pressures and procedures and manipulation that we have today? While Phipps is beautiful and full of natural beauty, in reality, it is placed and molded by the landscapers in such a way that makes it unnatural and almost too ideal, creating an environment of such standards that make it hard to look at the flowers around campus without comparing them to those in the conservatory.

Throughout the book, we are constantly bombarded with images of beauty, whether they be music, art, or people. However, beauty never seems to be clearly defined in absolute terms. I think Smith is making a point on how the extent to which we value unnatural beauty has made this become the natural way to think about beauty. She tries to emphasize the beauty of Kiki and the art in Carlene's home and other aspects of life that are naturally beautiful, and should evoke a sense of awe, but she cannot hide the fact that other aspects like Victoria seem to comment that the forced kind of beauty is still considered beautiful in a more obvious way. This beauty is very in-your-face throughout the novel, where the natural beauty is more subtle. This is also seen in Katie's painting, where the woman is considered ugly by societal standards yet Katie still considers her beautiful. I think that as much as the book attempts to define beauty as something natural and a little flawed and precious, it is something that will never be able to have a true, single applicable definition.