Look at Me. Jennifer Egan
IMAGE, GENDER AND TECHNOLOGY IN JENNIFER EGAN’S LOOK AT ME
Word counter: 2.701
‘The beauty myth tells a story: the quality called ‘beauty’ objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it. An imperative for women and not for men(…)’ (Wolf, Naomi, “The Beauty Myth”, page 2)
We live in a post-modern world. Images, surface and appearances have gained a huge importance in the last decades. Image has replaced everything else, becoming one of the first things to take into account in order to apply for some job, etc, especially in the female world. In the post-modern world the lost of identity is another point, as well as the power of new technologies and the lost of privacy they imply. All this is clearly shown in Jennifer Egan’s book Look at Me, written in 2001. In this essay, first of all, I am going to discuss the power of image and surface in the post-modern world. Secondly, I am going to analyse the relation between gender and image, especially in the female world. Lastly, I am going to consider the way in which new technologies influence the image world. To begin with, Jennifer Egan makes a deep analysis of the importance of image in the 21st century. Every character in the book reflects some aspect of the importance of appearances and the effect they have in our society. Jennifer Egan plays with this world of images just from the beginning, in fact, the main character, Charlotte Swenson, is a quite well-known fashion model, whose life revolves around image and surface. Through this character, the writer analyses the darkness of the modelling world, where appearance is very important and all the girls who are in it look very similar, as Aziz notices when he arrives in New York. For Charlotte, who used to make a living out of her image, it is very taught to live again after the accident, without her old appearance.
Word counter: 2.701
‘The beauty myth tells a story: the quality called ‘beauty’ objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it. An imperative for women and not for men(…)’ (Wolf, Naomi, “The Beauty Myth”, page 2)
We live in a post-modern world. Images, surface and appearances have gained a huge importance in the last decades. Image has replaced everything else, becoming one of the first things to take into account in order to apply for some job, etc, especially in the female world. In the post-modern world the lost of identity is another point, as well as the power of new technologies and the lost of privacy they imply. All this is clearly shown in Jennifer Egan’s book Look at Me, written in 2001. In this essay, first of all, I am going to discuss the power of image and surface in the post-modern world. Secondly, I am going to analyse the relation between gender and image, especially in the female world. Lastly, I am going to consider the way in which new technologies influence the image world. To begin with, Jennifer Egan makes a deep analysis of the importance of image in the 21st century. Every character in the book reflects some aspect of the importance of appearances and the effect they have in our society. Jennifer Egan plays with this world of images just from the beginning, in fact, the main character, Charlotte Swenson, is a quite well-known fashion model, whose life revolves around image and surface. Through this character, the writer analyses the darkness of the modelling world, where appearance is very important and all the girls who are in it look very similar, as Aziz notices when he arrives in New York. For Charlotte, who used to make a living out of her image, it is very taught to live again after the accident, without her old appearance.
Bibliography: Egan, Jennifer (2001) Look at Me, Ed. Picador, pages 1-416 Lanier, Jaron (2011) You are not a Gadget, Ed. Penguin, page 19 Wolf, Naomi from “The Beauty Myth”