Creative Writing Commons^™

Oh Sinnerman, Where You Gonna Run To?, Semein Washington

Theses & Honors Papers

Semein Washington. OH SINNERMAN, WHERE YOU GONNA RUN TO? (Under the direction of Mary Carroll Hackett, MFA) Department of English and Modern Language, April 2016.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the growth of personal identity via poetry. “Oh Sinnerman,” is a run of thirty-eight poems in which the speaker learns survival through experience, and the underpinning ideas, whether traditional or modern, for which life is preserved. In theme, the poems tend to separate his experience into personal and social humanity. In poems such as “No Good Being,” “Sunday Tennis” and “How One Loves,” personal humanity shows through …

Scarred: A Collection Of Creative Nonfiction Essays, Jason A. Ruiz

Theses & Honors Papers

This collection of essays seeks to explore the need for redemption as a necessary element of the Human Condition, by exploring my experiences as a child, adolescent, teen, and adult. Throughout the collection of essays, I, as the central character of the work, am conditioned by my physical deformity (a massive scar on my stomach) to question my life, values, and relationships. I establish for myself a destructive pattern that nearly ends my marriage. These destructive patterns eventually become touchstones through which I finally come to terms with who I am, what I am, and the truth that my existence …

Life On The Back Roads: Poems, Jessica R. Dennis

Theses & Honors Papers

Country life does not always feature the idyllic beautiful landscapes and the closeness of family as depicted in Elizabethan pastoral and Romantic nature poetry. While these elements indeed exist, much of country life is grittily realistic - a condition that derives from the hardships and "the dailiness of experience," as Virginia Woolf put it, consonant with living in "a state of nature." Drawing on my own rural experiences, first in my home state of Pennsylvania and later in North Carolina and Virginia, I will explore in my poems the complex relationship structures that form in rural America, focusing on the …

Friends In Bed, Andrew Baker

Theses & Honors Papers

A short novella, this thesis tells the story of a boy named Andrew as he deals with issues of identity, self-worth, friendship, and romantic relationships from his teenaged years up through early adulthood. Primarily facing the difficult question of what love is, he attempts to figure out its meaning for himself.

Forever Opening & Other Poems, Ashley Maser

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis is a large collection of poems on a plethora of different topics, written in varied styles from lyrical to narrative to blank verse.

Sehnsucht, Dena Ten Pas

Theses & Honors Papers

Sehnsucht is German, referring to a longing or yearning, sometimes further qualified as the longing for something unknown or something that will never be possible.

Elements Of Living, Dan Steele

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this thesis is the exploration of influential personal events through creative nonfiction which remains thematically centered on the four traditional elements of earth, air, fire, and water. In the four essays serving as my thesis, collectively entitled "Elements of Living," I reflect on personal experiences which have bad significant impact on my life and philosophical outlook, and assign an element to each.

The topics covered in each essay vary, and some take historical information into consideration. Although the history that is covered does serve an important metaphorical purpose in the essays, reading straight historical data can be …

The Line Of Then And Now: A Novella And Other Stories, Brittany Clark

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis is a final portfolio of several short literary fiction stories and a novella written as a final Master’s of Arts in English project.

Spilling Over: A Collection Of Short Stories, Jaleesa M. Watkins

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis, Spilling Over: A Collection of Short Stories, explores the concept of finding your place in the world. Nowhere is an individual more tested in discovering their own identity, their purpose, their place, than in direct relation to familial influence. In this collection, this idea of influence and growth into an individual, translates into a focus on the changing interactions in a family unit.

My characters are individuals in the midst of acknowledging a change in their family dynamics. These changes are sometimes unavoidable, such as reactions to death, disease, pregnancy, or divorce, which cause immediate changes within a …

Mirror Image And Other Stories, Amanda Inman Mull

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the lifestyle and struggles of poor, country people. In my collection of short stories, Mirror Image and Other Stories, I write working-class characters who must learn to survive while working at low-paying jobs. Many of these stories examine how frequently poor, country people are viewed by society as under-educated or unattractive due to their dialect or wardrobe, and how much of a negative effect these miss-perceptions can have on the individual. Often, my characters decide through their actions, to negotiate their beliefs, desires, obligations and selves as a way to …

"Playing Superhero": Agency And The Role Of The Teenaged Superhero, Jessica R. Saunders

Theses & Honors Papers

The discussion of agency within Young Adult Literature is an extensive topic that includes various criteria, such as power in various types of relationships and social ideologies. In the media form of graphic novels, the concept of agency is taken to a separate level because the primary teenagers depicted in graphic novels are titled as superheroes with abilities that surpass the norm. The role of being a teenaged superhero becomes conditional, depending on whether the teenager demands agency in the form of controlling his/her abilities or are assigned the role by their adult prototypes and society. The texts that this …

Home-Place, Beth Feagan

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis discusses the current problems with the traditional structure through which literature is taught in high schools today. It presents a modernistic approach to engaging high school students in reading and literature, and tackles the lack of relevance the old classic novels have in the lives of 21^st century students. It introduces the idea of using young adult novels to teach the literary concepts that states mandate in their curriculum, and it emphasizes the important role educators play in preparing their students for the real world.

Chaucer's The Parlement Of Fowls And The Rejection Of The French Tradition, Patrick V. Day

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis examines Geoffrey Chaucer’s pioneering work as a distinctly English poet who wrote against the grain of French literary influence in the Middle Ages. Analyzing works such as The Parlement of Fowls and The Canterbury Tales, this thesis marks Chaucer as an English original, writing on everything from love and class to literature and politics. Furthermore, it argues Chaucer’s influence in making Britain into a more mature nation distinct from mainland Europe, and discusses how The Parlement of Fowls prepared Chaucer for his future writing.

We're All Monsters Here And Other Stories, Lindsey Jones

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this thesis is to examine characters caught up in a transformation of identity: either a transfiguration or a transmogrification. Through the lens of fantasy, I sought to explore the trials of these characters in an exaggerated fashion that allowed me to take familiar questions and themes and attempt to make them new. All of my characters face a realization of identity: either they are startled into understanding that they are not who they thought they were, or they struggle to assert their version of self against pressure to be what others want. In “Marked”, Dwire has his …

Finding Home And Other Essays, Melissa Clampitt

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this thesis is to conduct an exploration of self through a series of essays. The seven personal essays that make up my thesis, collectively entitled “Finding Home and Other Essays,” have proven to be an examination of self primarily through my relationships with my parents, sister, and “step” family. These relationships focus on the uncertainty associated with unexpected changes, the moments forcing me to analyze the qualities that make up my identity. They also shed light on the mental, physical, and emotional aspects that find their way into and define “home”. With my first essay, I use …

Put Into Place, Heather C. Carey

Theses & Honors Papers

The blending of illusion and reality is the most prominent theme in the thesis. A mirror is the introductory metaphor for m perception of self and God; it reflects reality, bur does not capture internal conflict. As a character in the work, I internalize others' truths to create my persona; my narrative stance reflects my disconnected, dispassionate view of reality. The cold, stark church building serves as the metaphor for church members' treatment of my family under the guise of religious authority. Elementary school classmates' actions blend with those of men in my dating life to affect this persona and …

Lost Sex And Other Poems, Katherine Ringley

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this thesis is to examine, through a collection of poetry, loss and its effect on the speaker or characters of each poem. In "Lost Sex and Other Poems, " I often write about death, the ending of relationships, and loss of the self. While addressing these subjects, I also focus on a turn from religion, or a sense of disillusionment with cultural norms, that often follows a substantial loss. As Elizabeth Bishop once wrote, "the art of losing isn't hard to master," and I have had to face and evaluate many different changes in my life. The …

Things I Remember Which I Cannot Prove And Other Stories, Austin Eichelberger

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis is a collection of short narrative fiction stories which vary in length from one page to several.

The Reality Of Happily Ever After: Charlotte Bronte's Revision Of Fairy Tales In Jane Eyre, Sarah Rice

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis analyzes Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre through the lens of fairy tale stories, investigating the parts of Jane’s story that seem to parallel stories such as “Bluebeard” and “Cinderella”. It argues for a revisionist view of fairy tales as created by Bronte and discusses how the usage of fairy tale elements helps to further the plot and sociocultural messages of Jane Eyre.

Swimming Lessons, Kathy Cole

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis explores different perspectives through the eyes of adults and children and how those perspectives are formed by their relationships with the people around them.” It tries to focus on characters who are struggling to survive by realizing their own value. Whether they are surviving illness, death, abandonment, or midnight car rides with drunken parents, each of these characters tries to make sense of their world and how they fit into it.”

Ordinary Mermaids And Other Stories, Desiree Sholes

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis is a series of short stories in which the characters are constantly searching for something. The characters learn, grow, and adapt as they experience different life situations and work to find some new meaning for their lives, even if the change is small or subtle.

Practical Pieces And Other Stories, Rebecca Lynn Haigh

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis is a collection of short stories in which characters look back at the past, at truths they’ve learned and failures they’ve experienced, and look to the future for opportunities to make a better life for themselves and their loved ones. The idea of home plays a vital role in making decisions as to how to move on into a better future.

Out Here, Listening, Amy Whipple

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis is a collection of creative nonfiction essays revolving around the author’s place and identity within her community, especially where her womanhood is concerned. Within eight different essays, she questions and analyzes what community and individualism are and how they fit together to form a unique sense of self.

Things We Don't Say & Other Stories, Frances A. Stubbs

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose is to conduct an examination of what it means to survive, specifically in terms of overcoming the expectation to fail. The focus of each narrative is to be a struggle for survival by means of reconciling public opinion, assumed or real, with an individual’s perception of what it means to fail. The reconciliation emerges from understanding of identity, ideas about failure, and relationships between characters. In each story, moments exist where the character chooses between accepting other’s expectations or becoming something different. The characters struggled to survive emotionally and physically in a world with skewed value systems and …

Beasts And Other Stories, Amanda Walton

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of the short story is to create characters who reveal the theme of hope in dire circumstances in short story form. The interest being in unlovable characters who are considered unlovable because of their actions. The author views unlovable characters as more loveable. She is interested in the backstory of each unlovable character and how they face life’s hardest moments. The author gives each character a history and individual qualities so that the reader can understand the reasoning behind their actions. The author created an understanding of perspectives. She shed light on the idea that characters who commit …

Visions Of Yesterday, Today . . . And Moments Yet To Come, Linda E. Armstrong

Theses & Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

In A Bull's Eye: A Decade Of Criticism, 1970-1980, Judith Roberts Land

Theses & Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

All Rivers Run Into The Sea, Anne Hunt

Theses & Honors Papers

As the reader will see both the stories and poems which follow draw from everyday experiences , occurrences , and thoughts , They are not designed to fictionalize life as much as to portray it realistically. In doing so the purpose of my writing is to awaken in the reader a sense of the poignancy of everyday experience--not only of others but also of his own . They are an attempt , then, to expand not only my own consciousness but also the personal consciousness of my readers.

Creative Thesis: Character Revelation In Poetry, Katherine Y. Stuart

Theses & Honors Papers

When reading a book, short story, or a poem, the reader responds emotionally to the character depending upon the reader’s preferences. That in turn requires the writer to contemplate not only what type of character to create, but also how to develop that character. Poets in general struggle the most with character development within their works. Usually they are confined by the amount of words used or the type or words used, which then restricts the amount of character development. This thesis analyzes the use of the writer’s use of voice or speaker which impacts the character development within the …

A Red Coal: A Collection Of Poems, Dan Corrie

Theses & Honors Papers

The poems in this collection were written during the past two years, from 1977-1979. As the reader will quickly see, much of my work has been in the surrealist mode, with greater emphasis upon association of images than upon strict logical progression. But I am not a surrealist: I make use of certain surrealist devices to explore aspects of circumstances and conditions and to get at symbols from what Jung called the Collective Unconscious (as popularly understood-- not in any strict sense). While when I first began to write I delighted in strange and unusual images for their own sake, …