Date of Award

Spring 2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English

Program/Concentration

Creative Writing

Committee Director

Sheri A. Reynolds

Committee Member

Michael P. Pearson

Committee Member

Janet S. Peery

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E64 A53 2006

Abstract

This is a collection of five short stories. Each story presents a character who needs to grow up. That makes five wayward children. In the opening story, a young man learns from a Foreign Exchange student that he must accept his role as a child in order to grow up. The next story presents an old Italian-American matron who has lost her beloved five-foot plaster saint. Through this loss, she learns to cope with the pain of her husband's death and open herself up to the community. The third story features a young military wife in Fort Hood, Texas, who must stop depending on her parents and face the harsh realities of love and war. The fourth story presents another young woman who lies in order to get her husband to abandon his quixotic mania in Paris, act like an adult, and return home. In the last story, an adolescent boy experiences the death of his grandmother, the visitation of her ghost, and the deadly despair of the rest of his family. The only way he can see to escape the stifling atmosphere of death and dysfunction and become his own man is through a bizarre masturbation ritual. These stories, each different from the other in subject matter and point of view, all explore issues of personal development and maturity.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/gmg3-7704

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