Date of Award

5-31-2017

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English/Creative Writing

First Advisor

ZZ Packer

Second Advisor

Jill McDonough

Third Advisor

Kate Day

Abstract

Hating Rituals is a collection of short stories focused on the female experience; it attempts to navigate anxieties that are inherent to being a woman in this world – women’s relationship to their body, their relationships to and with men, to other women. The stories are linked by the same narrative voice: they’re written from the perspective of the same narrator in first person and present tense. In this way, the collection functions as a novel of stories, that is, a collection so closely linked they could be read as a longer-form work. The stories presented here are largely autobiographical, but their content has been treated as fiction, so in the process of writing and revision, the stories have changed from raw emotional impressions to complete narratives. Because the narrator both is and is not me, these stories become a vehicle for vulnerability: each story is driven by a disgusting confession, meant to confront the reader with their own flawed humanity.

Comments

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