Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Two Halves Into The Water, Michael Kuo

Masters Theses

In my introductory essay (“The Dying Star: Character in Contemporary Fiction”) I argue that the contemporary fiction writer views character in a new way, breaking with traditional fiction theory and its dependence on the Cartesian division of Self and Other. The contemporary writer “finds Descartes’ division of Self and Other impotent, turning instead to a vision of character in which there are no certainties; a character in contemporary fiction cannot necessarily come to ‘know herself’ or the world around her.” I trace the influence of Descartes in a wide variety of traditional fiction and theory, and then propose a new …

Learning To Forage, Daniel Von Holten

Masters Theses

Learning to Forage is a collection of poems resulting from my own progression from a rural environment, Walnut, Bureau County, Illinois, to the world outside. I illustrate this progression using a persona called Antaeus, named after the Greek demi-god who received his strength from the earth. Therefore, for the most part, Antaeus is me; as the speaker or consciousness in each poem he is aware of everything that happens in the collection.

In the first poems, Antaeus is comfortable in his farm community, but gradually he becomes aware of the death, decay and stagnation. He becomes dissatisfied with his world, …

Mainlining, Philip L. Simpson

Masters Theses

Mainlining is a collection of six original stories and a prose foreword. The six stories, each of which can stand on its own but when read together form a unified whole, divide into two sections. The first section introduces three main characters, and the second section details the various fortunes (and misfortunes) of these three main characters and additionally introduces a wide range of secondary characters. When analyzed as a group, these characters provide some insight into the collective experiences and emotions of the people living in Mainlining's fictional community of Lincoln.

Lincoln is a small city bearing more …