Comparison Essay of “An Insatiable emptiness” and “Distorted Image” Body- image anxiety is an issue that many people struggle with nowadays. There are many factors that contribute to one’s anxiety of body image, for example it could stem from media, social and personal view. “An Insatiable Emptiness,” by Evelyn Lau, focuses on her own personal struggles with bulimia, and her strained relationships with her mother. “Distorted Image,” by Susan McCelland focuses on the social dynamics of body image and provide reports of different cultural aspects on body image. Both of these articles explore a different perspective of how one cope with body image issue and the impact upon it.
In “An Insatiable Emptiness,” Evelyn Lau narrates her…show more content… She uses a first person point of view, and gives descriptive details about her experience of being bulimic. In the article, the author is very descriptive of her feeling and uses metaphors of her body change. She writes her sensation of her vomiting,” I was not throwing up half-digested food, as I had for years, but what I felt like a complete objects-plastic balls, pieces of Lego, nuts and bolts that tore at me as they came out of my body” (Lau, paragraph 18, p.433). Her words are shocking as it is graphic; the author wants to portray her experience to the reader from an introspective point of view. In the “Distorting Images”, Susan McCelland uses a third person point of view, and objective view to provide insight of how media and society pressures woman to look like a certain standard. The author uses from a journalistic perspective to examine that the media are constantly demanding light skinned and thin figured woman to be presented to the public. The “Distorted Images” and the “An Insatiable Emptiness” are different, for the previous use graphic narration of her emotion and feeling in battling with bulimia, while the later uses a broad view of body image topic, in which it provides cases and research of the topic. They are both present the story that parental view of body shape that could contribute to bulimia and anorexia, such as the cases of Zahra Dhanani and Evelyn Lau.
