Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

736

Date

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Major

Creative Writing

Committee Chair

John Bensko

Committee Member

Richard Bausch

Committee Member

Shelby Crosby

Abstract

The nine pieces of short fiction in this collection feature a group ofcharacters in transition: some caught between the easy magic of youth and the often painful discovery of complexity, others between deliberate stasis and queasy action. Their decisions in these moments will prove pivotal, with ramifications that echo for the remainder of their lives. The settings of these stories range the length of the East Coast from New Hampshire to Florida, often visiting places where the border between the wild and the tame becomes blurred: a campground, a rural farmhouse, a stretch of moonlit beach with the boundless ocean beyond. The indistinct delineation of civilization mirrors the chaotic internal worlds of these characters, at war with their own obsessive desires and fears. Although each of the individual pieces in the collection deals with disparate relationships and circumstances, the stories are unified by overarching themes of disillusionment and mortality.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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