Bruce Chatwin Essay, Research Paper
Bruce Chatwin’s life was a rare mix of tragedy, happiness, and irony. All of this is was due to the main influences on his life, which were traveling writing and an uncontrollable sex drive. He had moments of total happiness, unbelievable embarrassment, and his last where of excruciating pain. The life that Chatwin decided to live was ruled by emotion. Never did he think with his mind, he always thought with his heart this made him a great man, but also a dead man. An experienced traveler Chatwin was quite spontaneous and rash; quitting his job at Sotheby’s as a porter in a day in order to go to Sudan to look at the tribes living there. His excuse was that he needed to see new horizons, for his eyes where failing from hours of cataloging at Sotheby’s. This is the kind of behavior that made Chatwin an enduring figure of travel writing, travelers admire spontaneity, its is the dream of most people to quite what they are doing and get away. He traveled to exotic lands to get his inspiration on writing, but with the experiences he had, he added his own twist of fiction to make the writings even more intriguing than they would have been. Being such a charmer, on his travels he seduced many people, mostly men, but would accept a woman if the opportunity presented itself; this kind of behavior was his tragic down fall. His charm was his greatest gift, but also his greatest flaw. Ironically this made him famous and also killed him. He eventually died of aids because of his attitude toward sex and commitment. He should have had self-respected. If Chatwin had the self-control to respect himself, dying of aids would not have happened to this brilliant writer. Bruce’s enduring enigma is due to this for example, while dying of aids he passed it of as a rare fungus from a bat egg in
china. I think he was embarrassed of his actions, embarrassed so much so that he got married to try to cure the homosexual tendencies that haunted his life. Without much writing experience or education Chatwin managed to produce a number of great books. Chatwin self-educated himself by reading various authors, he could not stand the conformity of school. Chatwin was a man of extremes he would do what he wanted when he wanted. Never comprising anything for anyone, always thinking with his heart instead of his mind was his tragic down fall. Thinking with his heart instead of his mind made him
utterly charming. This charm along with his idealism for his listing to his heart made him great and deceased. He may have been searching his whole life for acceptance leading him to be a fornicator. This caused even more problems, Chatwin was then ashamed of himself he showed this with his marriage to his wife trying either to settle down and stop his sexual acts, or to hide it; this was also showed when he passed the aids virus off as a
fungus that he had supposedly contracted from a bat egg in china. He did not let the public know of the problems with his health only his close friends. His writing was the only constant in his life this is what gave him the stability and means to live in such extravagant way. Chatwin was a great literary figure whose faults where also his strength.
Insecurity is what made him seek comfort in the arms of sex. But this insecurity also caused him to strive to write better so to get accepted into society. Chatwin needed self respect, and respect for others. This is what ended his life in such a horrible manner. Chatwin is now an icon of traveling anyone who is going to Patagonia is bound to find the book into Patagonia on him. He