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ETD Abstract Container

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Bad Gift: Stories and Essays

Warren, Suzanne E.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1312295068

Abstract Details

2011, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: English and Comparative Literature.
My dissertation comprises six parts: three selections of short stories, two groupings of personal essays, and a scholarly essay. Parts I and V include personal essays on travel, cockroaches, the functions of religion, family, joy, and taste, to name a few topics. Formally, the pieces range from conventional essays drawing on journalistic and academic conventions to more experimental, fragmented narratives. All deploy autobiography in service of larger statements about the world beyond the self. The movement of a writing mind “essaying” to understand self and world determines the shape of these idiosyncratic visions; the unpredictable oscillation between inner and outer worlds generates narrative momentum and energy. Part III follows protagonist Nora Halpern from girlhood to middle age through a series of linked stories. The stories function both individually, as independent stories, and together, as a single novelistic enterprise. As domestic fiction, the collection focuses on familial and intimate relationships and the texture of women’s lives. At the same time, the stories are not divorced from the world at large; they aim to investigate how broader issues of power are played out in the private interactions between men and women, children and adults. As the stories follow Nora from suburban childhood to urban adulthood, they explore the ways history and place shape the experience of individual characters. Parts II and IV also explore the social and psychological realities of female lives. However, these works move beyond the formal conventions of domestic realism in favor of a broader generic range encompassing satire, fantasy, and fable. Finally, in the critical portion of this dissertation, I use Michel de Certeau’s understanding of glossolalia to read Toni Morrison’s approach to language and storytelling in Beloved.
Michael Griffith, MFA (Committee Chair)
Jennifer Glaser, PhD (Committee Member)
Leah Stewart, MFA (Committee Member)
177 p.
American Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Warren, S. E. (2011). Bad Gift: Stories and Essays [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1312295068

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Warren, Suzanne. Bad Gift: Stories and Essays. 2011. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1312295068.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Warren, Suzanne. "Bad Gift: Stories and Essays." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1312295068

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1312295068
135
© 2011, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.