Elizabeth Gilbert's Message

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book, not only to help Eustace’s cause and show people that they can live a more simple life as Eustace did, but also to show people the side of Eustace they never see: the flawed human. People who only got a brief taste of Eustace would think of him as nearly superhuman, a person who would lead them into a better way of life, however, once they came to work for him they would see that he was demanding, controlling and that the life at Turtle Island was very strenuous. As she said “After such a glorified introduction, it can be mortifying to learn that life at Turtle Island is grueling and that Eustace is another flawed human being, with his own teeming brew of unanswered questions. Not many seeker survive this shock, a shock I’ve come to refer to as the Eustace Conway Whiplash Effect. (206)” This shows the extent to which, though initially pleasing, Eustace is able to piss people off. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book to not only spread Eustace’s ideology, but to enlighten people so that they would not naively run off to a camp where they would quickly become disillusioned.