The attachments we form shape our experience of the world and our understanding of who we are. ‘Hell is other people,’ wrote Jean-Paul Sartre, his point being less about misanthropy and more about how entwined our self-perception is with how others perceive us.
And alongside our personal relationships sit the complex emotional connections we form with places, ideas and objects. How do we navigate these varying attachments, and what can they offer us when our lives are so mediated by technology? Can we break free of the tropes and traps associated with motherhood, filial duty, infidelity?
Griffith Review 84: Attachment Styles goes beyond the family tree to consider the pleasures, pitfalls and peculiarities of our messy human relations.
Griffith Review is a quarterly publication of essays, short fiction, conversations, poetry and visual art from emerging and established writers. By subscribing to Griffith Review you are helping to champion work by Australia’s best writers, thinkers and researchers. Current and past issues are also accessible via the Library.
