April 6

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book to write of the independence that people can have. Eustace has a sense of independence that most of us don’t have. He has the ability to live off of the land and be completely free of the rest of the world. In a quote from Eustace, he says “I don’t want to talk about doing things, I want to be doing things, and I want to know the realities and limits of life by their measure! I don’t want my life to be nothing, to not make a difference. And people tell me all the time how I am doing so much but I feel I am not even scratching the surface. Hell no, I’m not! And life is so short, I could be gone tomorrow” (Gilbert 83). By using this passage, Gilbert is showing how Eustace has the ability to be completely independent, but with this he also wants to impart this wisdom on other people. He has a huge desire to have other people live the same way that he does and his free thinking and independence help push him in this direction. Gilbert uses a lot of the information from Eustace to explain his ability to be free, however, she doesn’t push his idea that people need to be like him. She discusses the idea, but she does not add any push from herself. This adds an interesting comparison between the life that Eustace lives and the life that most Americans live.