Why Write The Book?

Blog – Why did Elizabeth Gilbert write this book? What does she want us to take away from Eustace. Refer to (and analyze) a specific passage in your response.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book to better understand herself. Specifically, her desire to live in nature, something reflective in Eustace Conway. Shortly after the book begins, Gilbert dives into her story - growing up in a wealthy suburb in Connecticut, pretending she didn't, and moving to Wyoming when she was 22. As she said on page 8, "I went to Wyoming, in other words, to make a man of myself". The key in this excerpt is that she doesn't mean man literally. She means man as in idealism - the kind like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, and even Eustace Conway. She was enchanted, even if, as she admits, she was a "faker".

The other reason that Elizabeth Gilbert writes the book is to explore how the reality contrasts Eustace's idealism. On page 11 she writes, "Eustace told me that people tended to romanticize his lifestyle. Because when people first ask him what he does for a living, he invariably replies, "I live in the woods." Then people get all dreamy and say, "Ah! The woods! The woods! I love the woods!" as if Eustace spends his days sipping the dew off clover blossoms. But that's not what living in the woods means to Eustace Conway." But, people don't know that they are wrong, that Eustace lives in a world full of stress and hypocrisy and struggle. Perhaps, Elizabeth Gilbert is trying to say that there are no "American men" left. Perhaps, Elizabeth Gilbert is saying "American Men" can no longer be 100% Davy Crockett. That is the reality that emerges from Gilbert's exploration of Eustace Conway.