Eating disorders and constitutive absence in contemporary women's writing

Calvo-Pascual, M. (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: Anorexic narratives share the thesis that compulsive behaviours like eating disorders are determined by a strong existential component fuelled by women''s paradoxical position in present day capitalist western culture. After a review of social and psychological factors that play a significant role in the development of the disorders, this essay explores the representation of anorexia nervosa in three different first-person narratives. By portraying the psychological intricacies of the illness, these texts provide valuable information regarding its aetiology and cure in the line of recent bio-medical research on eating disorders that stresses the need to treat the disease as a symptom of a deeper emotional distress. In short, patients and characters manage to overcome the illness when they acknowledge a sense of constitutive absence as the root of their disease and learn to live with the ensuing need for identity definition.

Idioma: Inglés

Año: 2017

Publicado en: Journal of International Women's Studies 18, 4 (2017), 292-305
ISSN: 1539-8706

Originalmente disponible en: Texto completo de la revista

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.184 - Gender Studies (Q3)

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/H05
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/FFI2015-63506-P

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Filología Inglesa (Dpto. Filolog.Inglesa y Alema.)