Success & Jealousy in Beauty Beauty, written by Jane Martin in the mid nineteen hundreds, is an ironic play about two successful women, Bethany and Carla. Both women were the same age yet complete opposites. They also had completely different personalities and were unhappy with their lives. Martin casted and characterized them this way to illustrate a few themes. The drama was mainly centered on the theme that no one is ever happy unless they get their wishes granted. However, in these two women’s cases, getting what they wanted caused them to realize there is nothing wrong with being different. These two themes can be seen through the two character’s success, jealousy, and a genie. Bethany and Carla experienced success in
The genie allowed Bethany to “walk in Carla’s shoes”. Bethany and Carla looked at each other and realized they had swapped roles. Both women stated, “We have each other’s jewelry, legs, nail polish, clothes and shoes. We can see each other!” (737). Upset, Bethany stated, “She wanted to be beautiful, but she did not want to be Carla.” (737). In the end, both women realized they regretted getting what they wanted because they both had the same thing that every other human had. They both realize that their happiness was not good because it only showed that they both just had a plethora of different problems. Beauty is practically a real life drama that actually occurs every day in the world. There are hundreds of thousands of people that are not happy with their current situations in life. Many of them just want to be so much more successful, and, in Bethany’s case, more beautiful. Too many people think that success and having good looks automatically lead to unlimited happiness. Sadly, this is a lot more false than true. People will only be happy if they are themselves and are different and unique. After reading Martin’s play, one can see that the two women are just like two people in the real world. They both have experienced success and jealousy. Too many people worry too much about their image and appearance. The genie in the play showed what happens sometimes when someone is given everything they