Date of Award

Spring 2001

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English

Program/Concentration

Creative Writing

Committee Director

Janet Peery

Committee Member

Sheri Reynolds

Committee Member

Manuela Mourao

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E64 M39 2001

Abstract

Set in rural Ohio, Taking Care of One's Own spans nearly forty years of the life of Dottie Connell, who loves this land despite bitterness and hardship. When she takes her best friend's daughter to raise, she must confront her ideas on motherhood, sexuality, and God. Taking Care of One 's Own explores the mysteries of grace, the bargaining of birthright and the power of vows, both those with others and, more influential, those with ourselves.

Dottie raises an adopted daughter and farms her family's four hundred acres in a generation unaccustomed to a single woman in either role. As she struggles to buy back her family's farm, she believes she was born to work the land and for the land to work its way in her, exploring the influence of place on identity. Taking Care of One 's Own considers the nature of forgiveness, the debts we owe, and the debts we think we owe.

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/fxht-nk22

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