Encounters with the Self
Women’s Travel Experience in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21389939 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Małgorzata Rutkowska (0000-0002-0305-5555, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Pages | 99-110 |
| Publication date | 2021-12-08 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Roczniki Humanistyczne (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0035-7707 • E-ISSN: 2544-5200 |
| Publisher | Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL (PUBLISHER • PL) |
| DOI | 10.18290/rh216911-7 |
| OpenAlex | W4200080508 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 2 |
This article examines representations of women’s travel experience in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything across Italy, India and Indonesia (2007) and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. A Journey from Lost to Found (2012). Both authors rely on and, at the same time, subvert generic conventions of masculine and feminine traveling while creating their narrative personas. Alluding to pre-modern cultural meanings of travel and adopting the roles of spiritual pilgrims, the authors renounce their former lives, examine their past mistakes, undergo a transformation and finally regain control of their lives. Paradoxically, though going on a journey is a prerequisite for self-redemption, travel is no longer represented in these texts as an encounter and confrontation with the outer world but rather as a solipsistic practice
Art · Humanities · Literature · Narrative · Persona · Sociology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · History · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Travel Writing and Literature
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |