Eat Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert Analysis

The Transcendentalists of the 1850s believed in individualism, equality, and optimism for the future, creating a time period where literature and arts prospered. With a Utopian society in mind, the reform of education, women’s rights, and slavery was put into motion. Over 150 years ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau wrote individual pieces displaying key transcendental beliefs. As with many works at the time, these papers still hold relevance in the 21st century and can be applied to modern citizens, such as Elizabeth Gilbert. As a novelist and memoirist, Gilbert tells the tale of her self-discovery in three parts in Eat, Pray, Love that each display a transcendental belief. Gilbert exhibits the quote, “My life is for itself and not a
Within this section she “found it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time” (Thoreau). Though companionship is necessary at some times, the ability to be content while alone separates the self-reliant from the small-minded. After practice of contemplation, it mattered not to Gilbert whether or not she was alone, for a “man thinking or working is always alone” (Thoreau 14). In pursuance of self-discovery, Gilbert’s inner self grew to find solitude as enjoyable as company of loved ones. She often ate alone in silence, not finding it necessary to fill every second of the day with meaningless activity. Gilbert did not let life “be frittered away by details” and instead enjoyed her individuality and free will (Thoreau 12). Lastly, Gilbert traversed to Bali, Indonesia where she discovered love. Though cliché, she “[trusted] herself” in the decision to open her heart, because “every heart vibrates to that iron string” (Emerson). Although falling in love in a foreign country with a man that had knocked her off her bike with a car appears rash, she believed in her choice and did not let other minds or society make the verdict for