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Joe Brahma
Ms. Pacheco
English III: Period 3
29 August 2014
Final Book Report
Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat Pray Love. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. 331.
Setting: 2004, New York, Italy, India, Indonesia
Characters: (List 5, and label the protagonist and antagonist. Use 2 adjectives to describe each character.)
1. Liz Gilbert- pleasure seeking and spiritual (Protagonist)
2. Liz’ Husband- angry and vindictive (Antagonist)
3. David- irresistible and passionate
4. Ketut Liyer- wise and spiritual
5. Filipe- Brazilian and patient
Theme: If you seek truth and spirituality in your life, you will find it.
Plot: (Describe the plot in several paragraphs.)
In 2004, Liz Gilbert’s life falls apart. She is thirty-one-year-old woman living in New York. She is a freelance writer and she has been married for eight years. Her husband anxiously wants the children they always dreamed of having, but Liz starts to question whether this is the life she wants for herself anymore, and she has a meltdown of sorts. She finds herself avoiding her husband and crying in the bathroom alone at night with the door locked while she tries to sort out what she’s going to do. Ultimately, as she lies crying on the bathroom floor one night, she determines she does not want to have a baby and that she does not want to be married anymore, but she doesn’t know how she will tell her husband this.
At this point, she starts to pray for the first time in her life and she asks God for the wisdom to tell her what to do. She hears a voice in her head that simply says, “Go back to bed Liz.” That’s exactly what she does, realizing this is not something that can be worked out overnight, but seven months later, she
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does leave her husband, and he does not take it well when she tells him she wants a divorce. He feels like she misled him to believe she wanted the same things in life he did, and he feels incredibly betrayed. He makes life a living hell over the next year as they go through their divorce, and he gets almost everything including their house and a portion of any of the royalties Liz earns from anything she wrote during the time they were married. Liz doesn’t try to fight him over this; she feels guilty over leaving him and just wants to get on with living her life.
To complicate matters during this time, Liz takes a lover named David that she has a very tumultuous relationship with. She finds him irresistible, but they are constantly breaking up and making up. When her divorce is final, Liz decides she needs a break from David and that she needs to go on a yearlong journey in which she seeks pleasure and spirituality. This is how she will heal herself from the pain of her divorce. She heads to Italy first, where she immerses herself in pleasure for the duration of four months. Then she goes to India where she indulgees herself in spirituality while she lives in an ashram. She meditates for hours everyday, trying to learn more about herself and her spiritual essence. She concludes the last four months of her journey by going to Bali in Indonesia. When she arrives there, she looks up a wise medicine man named Ketut Liyer that she met while she was in Bali on a previous trip. She thinks he will help her get closer to the truth, as she is still confused over what direction she should
head at this point in her life.
The novel concludes with her meeting a Brazilian businessman living in Indonesia. His name is Filipe and he is twenty years older than her. He seems like an unlikely love interest at first, but Liz ends up falling hopelessly in love with him. She spends the majority of her time with him while she in Bali, and at the end of her trip, they decide they will try and build a life together that is “somehow divided between America, Australia [where his kids live], Brazil and Bali.”
Conflict: (What it is and how it is solved?)
Through out the novel, Liz struggles with “belonging” in the world. As a result of her horrendous divorce, she no longer knows what her role is in the world. She knows it is definitely not that of wife and
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mother. To solve her problem, she goes on a yearlong journey so she can think things out while she seeks pleasure and spirituality. Ironically, even though she seeks pleasure, she has vowed to remain celibate during this time. This proves to be difficult for her. While in Italy, she contemplates having sex with Giovanni, who is ten years younger than her, but she finds the strength to resist him. This is not a problem for her when she is in India. She is so focused on finding her spiritual essence, as is everybody else there, that she doesn’t even think about sex. When he goes to Indonesia, she ends up breaking her vow of celibacy when she sleeps with Filipe.
By this time, she is feeling more grounded about her life. She has healed somewhat from the pain of her divorce, and while she is not really ready for a relationship, she kind of falls into this one without realizing it. Her and Filipe just start off as friends. Filipe is immediately attracted to her, but because he is twenty years older than her, she does not consider him as a potential love interest right off the bat. However, Filipe is a patient man, and he waits for Liz to realize he is exactly what she has been looking for. Because he is older, he already has children. So, she does not have to worry that he will press her to have children like her ex-husband. Also, he brings the wisdom that comes with age to the relationship, and she feels like she can trust him. Despite that she did not know what direction her life was heading when she left on her trip, by the end, she feels confident about the way things are going and she is happy again. She is ready to start her life with Filipe and move forward.
Application: (Describe something in the novel that is similar to something you or someone you know has experienced.)
When I was growing up, my parents went through a bitter divorce. Unlike Liz, my mother was the one who ended up with the house. Ironically, like Liz, my father went on a trip too after my parents split. He went on a trip on his motorcycle in which he traveled around the United States. However, he did not travel alone. He took his girlfriend with him. This was a painful time for me. It was hard to see my parents fighting all the time, and it was almost a relief when my father left. I just couldn’t take all the screaming between
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them anymore.
Because my parents went through a similar experience to Liz, I could really relate to this book. I found myself empathizing with Liz on several occasions as I read. I also related to her desire to find spirituality in her life. This is something I have looked for too.
Recommendation: (Describe your feelings about the book and give 2 reasons why you would or would not recommend it.)
I really enjoyed reading this book. I like that it is told in the first person voice. That drew me in and
made me identify more with the plight of the protagonist’s life. I also liked the humorous manner in which the author tells her story. Despite that it was a painful story, she makes light of her situation at times, and makes you laugh along with her. I would definitely recommend reading this book because it is a book that makes you think about your life and the direction it is heading. It also forces you to question your spirituality and what you believe in, and that is never a bad thing in my opinion.