Date of Award
Spring 5-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
English
Program/Concentration
Creative Writing
Committee Director
Kent Wascom
Committee Member
John McManus
Committee Member
Delores B. Phillips
Abstract
The following thesis contains the first three narrative movements from the working novel Don’t Destroy Yourself. The novel focuses on Paul, our first-person narrator, who must confront his mental illness (Bipolar I) directly after learning his wife is pregnant. The novel itself takes the therapeutic form of a series of dead letters – letters never meant to be sent to, or read by, the addressee – recounting Paul making sense of his mental illness to his unborn child. Don’t Destroy Yourself’s primary goal with this novel is to produce a piece of representation narrative that discusses a lived experience of Bipolar I honestly and unflinchingly. A secondary goal of Don’t Destroy Yourself is to provide solace and a feeling of communal belonging to those who may be going through a diagnosis period, manic period, or period of cycling thought.
Rights
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DOI
10.25777/wshb-we05
Recommended Citation
Norton, Timothy.
"Don't Destroy Yourself"
(2021). Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Thesis, English, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/wshb-we05
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_etds/143