Эссе на тему Appearances are deceitful

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It goes
without saying, many people believe that it is possible to form a clear idea of
people’s personalities only by their appearances. But is it worth trusting the
first impression? Or is it wrong to judge by appearances?

We can find
some confirmations of this proverb in the Bible and fairy tales. Really, appearance
is sometimes deceptive. When you see an attractive person in front of us, we
tend to admit that he or she is kind and sensitive, but we can’t know what is
in his / her soul.

A striking
example of this is the story of Beauty and the Beast. It is a fairy tale
originally written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuvehas
[2] which has been published in many variants and languages around the world [1].
In this story main character Belle falls in love with a terrible monster not
for his attractive appearance but for his sensual nature, softness, kindness
and attention.

Another
character who appears in an American filmed version of the story is Gaston. All
the girls consider him a model of beauty, but in fact Gaston has a very ugly
inner world, he is greedy and hypocritical, but unfortunately only Belle
understands this. Belle herself is beautiful not only externally; it also
attracts us with its inner beauty. So, in her case, appearance turns to be trustworthy.

Certainly, a
bright wrapper does not always mean a delicious candy, and an inconspicuous
cover is not an indicator of an uninteresting book. The same can be applied to people.
The most beautiful person in appearance can be too horrible and cruel like a
queen-stepmother from Pushkin’s fairy tale ‘The Tale of the Dead Princess and
the Seven Heroes’. And an inconspicuous and even ugly person can be a real and
reliable friend like Quasimodo from the novel ‘The Hunchback of Notre-Dame’ by
V. Hugo [11].

Therefore,
one should not judge others only by external factors. After all, very often it
may not meet our expectations. And the fee for such a misjudgment may be high.
For instance, no one could suspect a nice old man being a brilliant
psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter from the novel ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ by
Thomas Harris [4] a serial murderer. A truly horrifying example is revealed in the
book by Mary Ellen O’Toole under the title ‘Dangerous Instincts: How Gut
Instincts Betray Us’ [8]. A perfectly respectable, charming, smart neighbour turned
out to be a cruel criminal who installed a torture chamber in his garage where
he was systematically abusing kidnapped women. This is an extreme example, but
it proves that we can be totally deceived by a person’s face, manners and
behaviour.

One more
example we can find in Andersen’s fairy tale ‘The Nightingale.’ A small
inconspicuous grey bird was able to drive away even death with its beautiful
singing, since that bird had a living and loving soul.

On the other
hand, the idea that a person’s character is reflected in his or her appearance
was formed already in ancient Greece. For centuries, scientists have tried to
elevate to the rank of science the ability to determine the character of a
person by his/her appearance. In Physiognomica, a science ascribed to
Aristotle, it is assumed that we can “’read’ internal character from outer
appearance” [10, p. 268]