Travel writing helps travel writers to redefine their identity and to revise their concept of home as well as to determine its relative position in the world when using it as a frame of reference. In "Wanderlust: A Love Affaire with Five Continents", Elisabeth Eaves, both author and protagonist, renegotiates these two concepts – home and identity – in her inner journey of self-exploration.
Making use of a qualitative and explorative approach, this paper investigates the question of how the search for identity and belonging is fashioned in the book.
First, the theoretical part of the paper relates the concepts of home and identity to infer how home can function as a source of identity. These theoretical frameworks are then applied in the subsequent section to assess the manner and success of Elisabeth's strategies of identity construction providing an answer to the question whether her mobile lifestyle as a modern nomad leads to homelessness and lack of identity. Finally, the analysis section breaks down the narrative techniques Elisabeth uses to secure her public identity as travel writer and relates them to the construction of her personal identity.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Introduction: toward a definition of the modern travel book
- Home and Identity in Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents
- Relating Home and Identity
- Constructing Identity in an increasingly mobile world
- Home as Identity
- Home as a place
- Home as being-with-others
- Elisabeth's search for home and identity
- Establishing multiple place-based identities
- Establishing romantic home-relations
- Homelessness as a result of Elisabeth's search for home
- Relating Home and Identity
- Elisabeth's strategies of subjectification and subjection
- Elisabeth's strategies of subjectification
- Projecting difference onto the tourist
- Projecting difference onto the local
- Elisabeth's strategies of subjection
- Establishing an authentic traveler
- Establishing a masculine traveler
- Elisabeth's strategies of subjectification
- Conclusion
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This paper explores the question of how the search for identity and belonging is fashioned in Elisabeth Eaves's Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents. It analyzes how the concepts of home and identity are interconnected and how home can function as a source of identity. The paper also investigates the strategies used by Elisabeth Eaves to construct her own identity in a mobile world.
- The relationship between home and identity
- The construction of identity in an increasingly mobile world
- The strategies used to secure identity in a travel narrative
- The role of "home" in identity formation
- The impact of a mobile lifestyle on identity
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
The introduction defines the modern travel book and contrasts it with previous forms of travel writing. The paper focuses on the modern travel book's tendency towards autobiographical narratives and its use of fictional strategies to explore psychological issues.
Chapter 2 delves into the relationship between home and identity. It explores the complex nature of identity, particularly in a globalized and mobile world. The chapter establishes two theoretical frameworks for constructing identity through the search for home and belonging, which will be used to analyze Elisabeth Eaves's search for home and identity in the following chapters.
Chapter 3 examines Elisabeth Eaves's strategies of subjectification and subjection. It focuses on how she negotiates her identity as a traveler and constructs her public persona through her narrative. This chapter analyzes how she projects difference onto tourists and locals, and how she establishes herself as an authentic and masculine traveler.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
The keywords that encapsulate this work include: travel writing, modern travel book, identity, home, belonging, subjectification, subjection, travel narrative, self-discovery, mobility, globalization, cultural difference, place-based identity.
- Citation du texte
- Marie-Kristin Hofmann (Auteur), 2014, Where I belong is who I am. The Search for Identity in Elisabeth Eaves' "Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/373246
