Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Turning Heartache Into Hope: How Fantasy Reveals Spiritual Truth About Sin, Suffering, And Redemption, Sophia Raffaelle Bricker

Masters Theses

This paper examines the problem of evil and suffering through the literary genre of fantasy. Seminal texts written by Christians in this genre present the problem of sin and death through themes and representative characters but also tempers the reality of suffering with the presence of Christ figures, who bring redemption to the characters and story world through an act of sacrifice. Following the examples of these seminal fantasies and building on my personal experience of loss, I approach the problem of sin and suffering in excerpts from my novel in progress, The Mountain Pass Keeper, by presenting an older …

The Cast Of A Giant's Shadow, Angela Kay Steineman

Masters Theses

Adapting fairy tales and folklore has been an ongoing endeavor by storytellers and artists since the very first story was repeated. The evidence can be seen in the many versions of fairy tales like those of the sleeping beauty, from Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” to Walt Disney’s Maleficent. However, unlike their European counterparts, adaptations of American tales outside of children’s literature are not as ubiquitous. My writing rectifies this by adding to the resurging interest as seen in recent retellings like Matt Bell’s Appleseed: The Monstrous Birth (2019).

In an effort to reframe the American tall tale …

Ragdoll, George Jarrard Pate

Masters Theses

Ragdoll is a play in two acts telling the story of Jeff Stiles and his children, Annie and Andy. Jeff’s wife is a life-sized rag doll, and Annie and Andy have both human and doll parts to their physiology. Much of the play revolves around Andy and Jeff’s debate over the nature of their family’s existence.

Live Ghosts, Patricia Anne Ireland

Masters Theses

In Live Ghosts, Patricia (Patty) Ireland offers a gathering of short stories based upon real life characters she encountered while growing up in the South. Exploring the diversity, complexity and moral ambiguity of those we might normally perceive as being stereotypically “Southern,” Ireland’s tales encompass a variety of time periods, settings, and characters, including: a modern-day family struggling to reconcile the reality of death, interracial lovers in the early 1950’s who are descended from masters and slaves, and an insane killer locked for life in a mental institution of the 1990’s. Live Ghosts is infused with tales of fear, love, …