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Misadventures in Surreality

Kundus, Ian Michael

Abstract Details

2014, MFA, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
The themes and focuses of each essay in this collection are all largely coming-of-age stories, loss of innocence stories, and some fish out of water stories, though the sub-genre of the collective work is not memoir, but rather personal essay. When I use the term stories I mean only in the capacity that I draw from my personal experiences to illustrate a larger, more abstract idea that I then explore, similar to the structure of an academic essay—though with more creative license—just using largely my own experience in place of supportive and illustrative research. The overarching theme of the work itself is an examination of the relationship between fantasy and reality. Not only do I explore this relationship in the content of my essays, but in the writing style as well, as I frequently experiment with blending fiction into my nonfiction, thus paralleling the relationship. As with most creative works, this focus is exploratory. I do not make any promises, gambles, or explicit hypotheses about the end results, in part because the writing I do is highly subjective, but also because good creative writing is often more about the journey than the destination, and planning the end result ruins the process of writing it. With that said though, I hope to show, using my own experiences as example, that the transition from child to adult is a struggle, largely because of the disillusionment that comes with it, the suspension if not expulsion of childhood fantasies sacrificed for grown-up reality. And yet, fantasy still plays an integral part in adult life, it's just often relegated to fantasy, whereas as for a child, fantasy is the majority fabric that defines reality—Mom and Dad are superheroes, mythical entities like Santa and the Easter Bunny are accepted without question, play is driven by imagination that pours from the minds of children filling in the massive gaps in reality they don't understand or aren't even aware of yet similarly to how adult societies have historically done through myths, legends, and superstitions. The point being, we trade those whimsical fantasies in for more serious ones, ones that help us to cope—like imagining that the guy who brought 20 items to the 10 Items or Less line gets crushed by a falling piano the minute he leaves the store; or that serve our ambition—like envisioning yourself getting that big promotion, landing the big account, finding your big break; or that aid in avoiding the harsh atrocities of adult reality, big or small. What makes my work a more unique struggle is that I'm actively aiming to keep those fantasies alive, and approaching this task with a high level of self-awareness, essentially documenting my changes, my breakthroughs, my successes, in essay form, to show how I'm trying to live a successful adult life and keep my whimsical, youthful fantasy. It's a new spin on Peter Pan Syndrome. The boy wants to grow up, he just wants to stay a boy and a be man. Will he succeed or fail?
David Giffels (Advisor)
Chris Barzak (Committee Member)
Craig Paulenich (Committee Member)
154 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kundus, I. M. (2014). Misadventures in Surreality [Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1397818714

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kundus, Ian. Misadventures in Surreality. 2014. Kent State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1397818714.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kundus, Ian. "Misadventures in Surreality." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1397818714

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)