Reconstructing

Reconstructing and Transcending Identity

While formally published within the past year, Foss and Foss’s (2011) paradigm of

constructed potentiality is based on several intersecting theories from various disciplines that

have emerged over the past six decades. Drawing from the wide ranging fields of communication, psychology, philosophy, religion, cultural studies, and quantum physics, Foss and Foss (2011) offered the paradigm of constructed potentiality as an alternative means for generating change and relieving various forms of exigence where “individuals focus on symbolic resources and use interpretation to change their own internal states” (p. 205) instead of focusing solely on material, or outside resources. Through choices of interpretation sought from internal sources, the Fosses argue, an endless supply of possibilities is available to the individual for ways of creating change and transcending their circumstances. In addition, they say looking to “others’ perspectives can [also] be seen as beneficial rather than detrimental to individuals’ thinking because they provide diverse ideas about how to interpret conditions” (p. 230). In other words, instead of individuals looking to outside material conditions for their identity and well- being, they can seek the symbolic resources of new perspectives (both internal and external) - but in the end, “they assume responsibility for generating well-being themselves” (Foss & Foss, 2011, p. 216).
In looking at Gilbert’s personal narrative, we can immediately see how this paradigm is especially useful in understanding how she transforms herself throughout her journey. As I discuss later in this paper, she uses the symbolic resources of Yogi wisdom, the stories of strangers and a reframing of her own emotions to re-interpret both her identity and what happiness looks like for her. While various people and cultures she encounters along the way present her with these new possibilities for changing her life, she takes the responsibility for interpreting, choosing and actualizing these possibilities.
METHODOLOGY

This study involves a narrative analysis of Eat, Pray, Love using Walter Fisher’s narrative rationality as well as the extensions of his assessment framework offered by William Kirkwood (1992) and Scott Stroud (2002). Through this analysis I will show how Gilbert focuses on both symbolic, internal resources as well as outside possibilities to reconstruct a new identity for herself following an early-onset midlife crisis. A narrative analysis is a compelling method for studying these messages in Gilbert’s personal narrative since stories can reveal the complexities and rich accounts of identity as well as the process of identity creation (Webster & Matrova, 2007; Kirkwood, 1983). As Kirkwood (1992) offers,

“Through storytelling, rhetors can confront the states of awareness and intellectual beliefs of audiences; through it they can show them previously unsuspected ways of being and acting in the world. Furthermore, stories…can expand an audience’s moral responsibility by showing them they are freer and more capable that previously imagined” (Kirkwood, 1992, p. 32).
In addition, since individual female subjects are left to forge their own identities based on individual values in light of postmodern, third wave influences, personal stories become a powerful vehicle for identity exploration in the absence of one fixed, prescribed view of “woman.” Through sharing their personal narratives, women may “discover new self-perceptions and strengths that fall outside previous ‘problem saturated’ or negative constructions, held either by themselves or others” (Williams, Labonte & O’Brien, 2003, p. 36). Storytelling has an especially important impact on marginalized groups of women who may not have had these possibilities presented to them otherwise (Williams, 2001; James, 1996, Sarup, 1996). Given
Kirkwood’s (1992) and Stroud’s (2002) specific focus on how new possibilities for belief are

presented in stories, their perspectives will be especially useful in understanding the text.