Creative Writing Commons^™

Group Therapy: A Play, Eleanor L. Earl

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Group Therapy is a modem drama set in Portsmouth, Virginia, a small Naval town which is part of a larger area called Hampton Roads. Hampton Roads is best known for its Naval shipyards, Naval bases, and historic landmarks. The year is 1994.

The play focuses on interpersonal communication in a setting that serves as a surrogate family. In the play, seven men and women from varied walks of life come together and share their most intimate joys and sorrows in group therapy. Together, with the assistance of a dedicated psychologist, they struggle to confront and overcome depression and anxiety.

High On A Horse, John Preston

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Caudill College of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English by John Preston in August of 1994.

Come Rain Or Come Shine, Teresa E. (Terry) Perrel

English Theses & Dissertations

This novella, set in 1946, explores the needs and wants of Cooley and Edna Godwin, who have been married almost twenty years. The title comes from a popular song of the time about the constancy of love. The story opens and closes with both the husband's and wife's perspectives, but the central body of the work takes on Edna's consciousness as she leaves home, South Norfolk, Virginia, to look for happiness in California. During her travels, she is forced to examine her prejudices, to question her myopic view of the world, and to recognize the nature of true love.

The Muffler Mailbox Man, J. Amari Roland

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Upon my arrival on earth. Mother forbad me from doing two things: going to K-Mart and talking to my Uncle Ike.

Ironically, the first word I learned to read was "K-Mart.” Mother pointed out the store every time we drove past. She told me many times of the evil that could befall a person if he entered its doors. I reckoned she knew all about K-Mart because she claimed to have gone there twice before I was born. Based on the two visits, Mother decided that the voice of the blue-light special masked some sinister, subliminal message. While everyone else …

The Female Language Barrier: A Close Reading Of The Poetry Of Emily Dickinson And Adrienne Rich, Annmarie Faiella

Honors Theses

Historically, the First Amendment right to free speech was limited to certain groups. Language, although constitutionally guaranteed since 1776, has not always been a freedom for everyone. Among those at language's mercy are immigrants, slaves, and women. Women's speech was limited not by a lack of knowledge, but by a societal acceptance of women as inferior.

What then do women do to overcome this ever-present chasm? What women did in the nineteenth century, the 1960s, and are still doing today is: write more creatively. The tighter the restraint of language, the more inventive the woman must be to use it …

Forced Entries: A Novel, Thom Schnarre

Masters Theses

The allure of a creative thesis for me was the unique blending of literary study and personal exploration. I have always felt my writing a cathartic activity as I grappled with the textual issues and gained personal insights through the struggle. For this reason, I chose the creative option as a culmination of my graduate studies at EIU. While I have dabbled in all three genres -- poetry, playwriting and fiction -- in my graduate career, it is the extended fiction genre of the novel that I have chosen to pursue in this project. The thesis is comprised of two …

Robert Frost And Maya Angelou: Poet-As-Rhetor In The Presidential Inauguration: Textual Symbols And The Symbol Of Enactment, Donna M. Witmer

Masters Theses

This criticism uses an organic approach to examine the rhetorical properties of Frost's and Angelou's inaugural poems and their individual enactments respective of the constraints and exigencies in the Presidential inaugurations of Kennedy and Clinton. Apparently responding to the constraints of television's sound bite as well as to exigencies of the traditional inauguration and the need to serve a new generation and a culturally diverse population, the Clinton Administration combined the poetic form, used to heighten an emotional response, with an enactment as a synecdochic symbol, used to assert sociopolitical ideology.