Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Major/Program
Creative Writing
First Advisor's Name
Lynne Barrett
First Advisor's Committee Title
Committee Chair
Second Advisor's Name
Debra Dean
Second Advisor's Committee Title
Committee Member
Third Advisor's Name
Michael Gillespie
Third Advisor's Committee Title
Committee Member
Keywords
fiction
Date of Defense
3-16-2023
Abstract
RELATIVE ANATOMY is a short story collection that draws on the uncanny and the grotesque to show characters torn between obsessions and obligations, seeking their own paths.
As in Shirley Jackson's “The Haunting of Hill House”, seemingly trustworthy narrators find their obsessions overwhelming reality. In “Rot" a medical student becomes willing to do anything to get her rivals disqualified, while the protagonist in "Pears from Singapore" assumes she has become immaculately pregnant.
Some stories, like those in George Saunders' “The Tenth of December”, use off-kilter worlds to compel characters to face who they really are. In “Oracle," an epileptic high school outcast who has visions during seizures, is shown an outcome compelling him to save the school bully, while an elderly theme park CEO in "Beyond the Curtain's Edge" is forced to reckon with his mistakes in a place where imagination and beauty are supposed to reign.
Identifier
FIDC011070
Recommended Citation
Giglio, Celeste A., "Relative Anatomy" (2023). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5262.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/5262
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