Who Defines Beauty?

After reading the piece by Truman Capote, I began to wonder if what he was saying was serious or satirical- was he trying to make a comment on how women should act, or was he criticizing how women are told to sit pretty and quiet. Of course, I did read his piece with biased eyes that are used to fairly equal rights for both sexes, and therefore I have trouble wrapping my head around Capote’s archaic description of a beautiful woman as one lacking confidence and allowing others to gawk at and scorn her appearance.

            Capote likened a beautiful woman to a swan, gliding gracefully through life with an attractive face and the husband and money to keep it looking that way. Though, he states, that a woman without a beautiful face can be like a swan, if only she can trick the people around her that this is so. This idea angers me because it is one that still exists today, where people’s first impressions are usually only skin deep and where many would rather pile their money into looking better rather than using it to exercise their moral and personable attributes. It is also still clear the envy that women feel about another’s looks, but then what is the point of beauty if one group is fiending for it while the other group is told not to appreciate the looks that they were blessed with.

            However, I question how serious Capote’s writing is because of how he writes about Coco Chanel, praising her strength and ability to flourish, but not going beyond that into her personality and womanhood. Did he believe her to be unattractive since she flaunted her confidence in her skill and did not follow the ideas of beauty, charging boldly out into a field dominated by men?  Perhaps he is saying that her “inner vision (220),” adorned by her newly famous fashion, managed to trick people into seeing her as a swan when she was merely a swallow lucky enough to get a man’s support? Or is he hinting that all the matters in a woman is what she accomplishes, so that looks are far from being important enough to talk about? Then again, he goes on to liken her to a plant in the end, so I give up trying to understand the meaning of what he writes and what he thinks of women.