Trauma, Travel, Truth : An analysis of the New Age female’s self-expression of trauma in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love

Sammanfattning: This essay explores female self-expression of trauma in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. By using affect theory by Lauren Berlant and Kathryn Robson, it explores how female self-expression of trauma in New age autobiographies is culturally influenceable and ultimately consist of specific testimonial rhetoric. This analysis explores different narration techniques and rhetoric common in testimonial literature, specifically, discussing how utopian conventions, self-evidence, fictionalisation and healing through writing are present in Eat, Pray, Love  Moreover, the essay discusses how similar conventions and rhetoric are employed within New Age milieus and play a part in Liz's choice of self-expressivity.  Thus, the findings from the analysis are discussed in a broader context by showing how self-expression of trauma in New Age literature ultimately says something about creating female subjectivity.  The discussion suggests that New Age milieus contribute to reinforcing generic conventions and tropes of self-expression of trauma through literature. By suggesting that EPL is in fact, bound to cultural expectations of womanhood and authoring; this essay sheds light on how the female subject is created in literature.