EULOGY : A thesis presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Creative Writing (MCW) at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
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Date
2016
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Massey University
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Abstract
This thesis is concerned with writing fragmented narrative and it asks how the ‘space
in between’ can connect the progression of fragments in fictional works. It explores how the
assembling of fragments in fictional narrative can contribute to the whole becoming greater
than simply a sum of its parts. Informing the writing process is a study of the effects of spatially
driven narrative. The thesis consists of two parts: The novella, Eulogy, evokes the emotional
complexities encountered by a woman delivering a eulogy for her partner. The accompanying
exegesis discusses the research surrounding the writing of Eulogy and examines how novels
by Patricia Grace and Lisa Moore also represent loss, showing how spatial form can work in
the structure of fragmented narrative to convey such things as state of mind and the circularity
of life-experience.
Loss is universal, but how an individual experiences and deals with it is very much the
result of circumstance and personal history, and this is what I aimed to explore in Eulogy. The
novella consists of a number of non-chronological fragments which accumulate, connect and
layer, building towards an understanding of all the narrator has lost, and how these losses are
experienced in relation to each other. As insight into the specificity of the narrator’s response
and feelings develops over the course of the novella, so too does the complexity of her
relationship with Dean, the partner who has died, building towards the underlying sense that
the novella is itself also a eulogy.
My supporting exegesis draws on Joseph Frank’s theory of spatial form to examine
how Patricia Grace’s Baby No-Eyes and Lisa Moore’s February also pivot around the theme
of loss,. By mapping the fragmented structure of the novels, I set out to analyse how the spaces
between fragments work in these works and to explore the cognitive and thematic links that
bridge them. Examining a singular fragment in detail, I asked how space and time are used to
propel each narrative. I then expanded my enquiry to the relationship of these single fragments with the fragments on either side. The exegesis concludes with a discussion of how I applied
this strategy to my own creative process in Eulogy, questioning how the connections between
and within fragments could contribute to the intricacy and unity of the overall novella.
To a certain degree, the process of this thesis was itself an exploration of spatial form
and fragmented narrative. The creative component and research were built incrementally and
each was informed by the other. The pieces pushed and pulled, fed off and challenged one other
as I progressed, making sense of both fragments and spaces to coalesce them into a cohesive
whole.
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Research Subject Categories::HUMANITIES and RELIGION::Aesthetic subjects::Literature