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Open Access Thesis

Abstract

A creative project has been undertaken for a learning experience in order to better understand and appreciate past and contemporary works of fiction and attendant problems of fabulation for the ultimate purpose of improving guidance of students through literary studies. The project, a novel, demonstrates an attempt to dramatize part of the contemporary phenomenon of the individual's search for "self" within a family whose members rebel against or accommodate themselves to varying perceptions of authoritarian endoctrination and expectation. Although the major characters are women, Heirs is not designed to be a women's liberation story. Rather, the novel is a comic human liberation story ruminating a thesis that we do not inherit the past, only the consequences of its stereotypes, processes and errors. Achieving awareness of such consequences, however, may bring the opportunity for new beginnings. Thus, the story leans upon a parody of the Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent to the nether world, which is believed by some to express an individuation rite particularly representative of the emotional and psychological stress undergone by those who must face a change in life style and direction. According to the myth, the rite requires that the initiate peel away layers of self-delusion to confront the "self" honestly. In this story, perception remains always a problem affected by many variables; for, that which was once seen as emotionally serious becomes, in retrospect, a stereotype seen as ridiculous. In this story, confronting the "self" requires that the fictive participating narrator put together and examine a melange of faulty perceptions of the authoritarian influences upon the members of the family. One such influence, the corpse lying in state in the living room, representing the corruption of the family values, continues to exert an irrational authority until finally lowered into the grave. Such is the situation enmeshing the stumbling, somewhat gullible narrator who descends to her nether world and emerges stripped of self-delusion, aware to some extent, but yet to find out who she is. Attendant problems of fabulation include the difficulties surrounding the choice of a first person narration and the choice of the present tense. The first choice imposed severe limitations concerning perception and character delineation. The second, created difficulties in providing transitions from one time scheme to another. Furthermore, first person narration and present tense created difficulty for situating ironic juxtaposition. To ease the problems, a frame was chosen for the purpose of encompassing the narrator's experience. Within the frame, the narrator's mind operates in a spiraling movement. Primarily, the major problems to be solved concerned narration, time and structure.

Year of Submission

1975

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of English Language and Literature

First Advisor

Daniel Cahill

Second Advisor

Shirley Haupt

Third Advisor

Robert J. Ward

Comments

The creative work referenced in this graduate thesis, consisting of pages v-196, currently is not being made available in electronic format through UNI ScholarWorks.

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

1975

Object Description

1 PDF file (13 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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