Date of Award
Summer 8-2010
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
School
Humanities
Committee Chair
Steven Barthelme
Committee Chair Department
English
Committee Member 2
Frederick Barthelme
Committee Member 2 Department
English
Committee Member 3
Katherine Cochran
Committee Member 3 Department
English
Committee Member 4
Monika Gehlawat
Committee Member 4 Department
English
Committee Member 5
Charles Sumner
Committee Member 5 Department
English
Abstract
This collection of short stories is primarily concerned with the dynamic between adults and children—parents and their own children, teachers and their students, and other adult/child relationships. In each of the stories, children present a psychological or emotional challenge to the adults, one with which they are not always equipped to cope. They are a problem which cannot be solved easily, if it can be solved at all. On a formal level, the stories in this collection seek to blur the line between the mundane and the magical. Though the collection is riddled with the fantastic, at its center is the struggle of its characters to understand their existence and negotiate within the human world of relationships, hope and disappointment, and loss. The strange or magical elements underscore the characters’ struggles to understand their own humanity.
Copyright
2010, Beth Lynn Couture
Recommended Citation
Couture, Beth Lynn, "Disappearing Children" (2010). Dissertations. 977.
https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/977