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Full text of this paper is not available in the ETD Center. Copies may be available for inter-library loan from Bowling Green State University or may be available for purchase from Proquest/UMI

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Eye of the Firmament

Orchard, Rebecca L, Orchard
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1530282981789348

Abstract Details

2018, Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Bowling Green State University, English.
This thesis is comprised of short fiction ranging from four to eighty pages, inhabiting worlds as familiar to the reader as a suburban home and as alien as a magical, spirit-filled wasteland. I assembled this collection along three key thematic lines, the first being feelings of ambivalent motherhood. Characters in this collection come to terms with their pregnancy or reject it; they leave their families wondering if they should have had children at all; and they live in a liminal space where love is expected of them but not easy to procure. The second thematic concern present in many of these stories is grappling with mythology. In “Ithaca”, a young woman is introduced to a cosmic mythology by her aging employer. In “Investigation No. 5,” a family mythology is investigated as if it holds as much importance as one of the major world religions. Disillusionment with Judeo-Christian mythology is portrayed in “In the Pool,” and “Shoulder, Midrib, Neck” deals with the retelling of a Scottish myth. The final theme running through these stories is that of generational legacy: what a parent bequeaths to their children far beyond physical possessions. How is that legacy corrupted by the actions of the parent? How can a child fit themselves into the world, bearing these often-sordid gifts? Characters struggle with these questions in “Nomads,” “Shoulder, Midrib, Neck,” and the novella that ends the collection, “The Ballad of Baby MacCrae.” The novella is the story where all of these themes come back and braid together. The solitary narrator must grapple with the worldview she’s been indoctrinated into by her aunt: pagan Celtic beliefs, Old Testament Christianity, and blood rituals. This novella concerns how a woman can bring a private mythology into the public world, and how she can make peace with the legacies that have been left to her.
Lawrence Coates (Committee Chair)
Wendell Mayo (Committee Member)
Fine Arts; Literature
fiction; short story; novella; creative writing; myth; folk tale; short fiction; feminist fiction; ambivalent motherhood; motherhood; mythology; scotland; astronomy;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Orchard, Orchard, R. L. (2018). Eye of the Firmament [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1530282981789348

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Orchard, Orchard, Rebecca. Eye of the Firmament. 2018. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1530282981789348.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Orchard, Orchard, Rebecca. "Eye of the Firmament." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1530282981789348

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1530282981789348