Literary Essay - Wonder

In the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio, Auggie has a facial deformity and people do not like that.  People always look away from him when they see him.  When people see him for the first time they will be shocked or surprised.  People are mean to him a lot and they will call him names or leave mean notes on his locker.  Because of all this I think people think Auggie is strange.

Throughout the story people are always looking away from Auggies's face whenever they see him.  They also stare at him a lot too.  For example on page 22 the author writes "Jack Will looked at me and put out his hand.  When I shook it, he kind of half smiled and said 'Hey' and looked down really fast."  Jack Will looked down and that shows that people don't want to look at his face because of the deformity.  People will always stare at him too.  Sometimes in the park or at school people just stare at him with their mouth open.  That is very rude because if he sees them he will know they think he is strange and it will make him feel bad.

When people see him for the first time they will be shocked or surprised.  On page 63 the author writes "he got a look at my face and without even meaning to said “Whoa!"  This shows that people do get shocked when they look at his face.  The 8th grader was surprised when he saw Auggie for the first time as he was running down the stairs.  That is why he said that even though he didn’t mean to.  It was rude to Auggie for him to do that because it will make Auggie feel bad because someone was freaked out just by looking at him.

People are mean to him a lot in the book.  They will ask mean or rude questions and call him names. They will also pretend that he has some plague and you can't touch him or else you will catch it and you have to wash your hands within 30 seconds or you will catch it too.  On page 29 the author writes:  "What’s the deal with your face, I mean were you in a fire or something.'"  This shows that people are mean to him.  It shows that because Julian was asking a mean and rude question about his face.  But there are also nice people.  One time Auggie made a joke and a person left a doll in his locker with a note on it.  There are also a lot of other nice people like JackWill and Summer and others.

People are mean to Auggie.  They look away when they see him.  They will be shocked if they see him.  They do much more things to him too.  All of this happens because Auggie has a facial deformity.  People can be a little scared or surprised at that but for some reason they will bully him about it too and that will make him feel bad.  People think that Auggie’s facial deformity is strange.