Eat, pray, loathe : women’s travel memoir as moving metaphysical journey or narcissistic new-age babble?


Autoria(s): Cantrell, Kate
Data(s)

16/05/2011

Resumo

This paper considers the contentious space between self-affirmation and selfpreoccupation in Elizabeth Gilbert’s popular travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. Following the surveillance of the female confessant, the female traveller has recently come under close scrutiny and public suspicion. She is accused of walking a fine line between critical self-insight and obsessive selfimportance and her travel narratives are branded as accounts of navel gazing that are less concerned with what is seen than with who is doing the seeing. In reading these themes against the backdrop of women’s travel, the possibility arises that the culture of narcissism is increasingly read as a female discursive practice, concerned with authorship, privacy and the subjectivity of truth. The novel, which has been praised by some as ‘the ultimate guide to balanced living’ and dismissed by others as ‘self-serving junk’, poses questions about the requisites in Western culture for being a female traveller and for telling a story that focuses primarily on the self.

Formato

application/pdf

Identificador

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/42279/

Publicador

Central Queensland University, Faculty of Informatics and Communication

Relação

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/42279/1/42279.pdf

http://ejournalist.com.au/v11n1/Cantrell.pdf

Cantrell, Kate (2011) Eat, pray, loathe : women’s travel memoir as moving metaphysical journey or narcissistic new-age babble? Ejournalist: a refereed media journal, 11(1), pp. 45-53.

Direitos

Copyright 2011 please consult the author

Fonte

Creative Writing & Literary Studies; Creative Industries Faculty

Palavras-Chave #190402 Creative Writing (incl. Playwriting) #199999 Studies in the Creative Arts and Writing not elsewhere classified #Eat, Pray, Love #Elizabeth Gilbert #popular fiction #popular culture #female travel memoir #narcissism #travel writing
Tipo

Journal Article