Abstract
This thesis, a collection of original short fiction with a critical introduction to the stories, represents the best of my fiction written while enrolled in the Master of Arts program in the Department of English. The overall objective of the stories, as the title suggests, is to render powerfully articulate the "no man's land" of the adolescent consciousness at the moment the protagonists epiphanically realize the discordance of external (societal) and internal (personal) morality. The critical introduction to the thesis will focus primarily on demonstrating how the difficulties inherent in writing regional (Southern, in this case) fiction are handled, providing textual explanations and examples from the stories as well as topical commentary from several contemporary critical theorists. Of the seven stories of the collection, five are written from firstperson narrative viewpoints, four of these from adolescent narrators. Since these adolescent narratives best embody my overall premise, or aim, in writing the collection, these will receive more explication and discussion in the introduction than will the other three. These others, however, share certain features in common with the adolescent narratives, and will be discussed in terms of style and theme. Conceding the inevitability of literary influence, and the resulting impossibility of ever "writing in a vacuum," the introduction will also acknowledge some of the most obvious influences on my fiction.
Fortenberry, Amelia Carol (1993). Waking up in the delta: stories. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1993 -THESIS -F737.