Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Major/Program

English

First Advisor's Name

John Dufresne

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Debra Dean

Third Advisor's Name

Bruce Harvey

Keywords

Teeth, In Vivo Veritas, Girl Scouts, The Rhythm, The Ghost of Diane

Date of Defense

3-6-2012

Abstract

TEETH AND OTHER TALES is a novella and a collection of short stories that explore the blurry lines between illusion and reality.

Teeth, the novella, is narrated backward in time, chronicling the life of Lucy from the age of sixty-five back to seventeen. After years of surviving an oppressive marriage, Lucy escapes her husband, but in doing so abandons her three children. In order to rationalize her decisions, Lucy uses selective memory to create her own reality to the extent that she comes to believe her own delusions.

The four short stories in the collection feature protagonists who create their own personal myths and struggle to protect their distorted truths, with mixed results. These struggles between the “real,” as conventionally defined, and personal fictions are complicated by elements of magical realism and surrealism. The stories were influenced by the short fiction of Nikolai Gogol, Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami.

Identifier

FI12042305

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