Keywords
Fiction, nostalgia, old west, east texas, derangement
Abstract
Lightning Flowers traces the psychological collapse of Waylan Dranger, an East Texas construction worker / folk artist. Waylan suffers from hallucinatory encounters with Reeve, his missing brother. Reeve often blames Waylan for his disappearance and implied death. Waylan also worries that Sam, his live-in girlfriend, will leave him before he can resolve his own increasingly erratic behavior. Largely, Lightning Flowers is preoccupied with the consequences of nostalgic thinking. Among others, the novel grapples with the following questions: What defines contemporary notions of "brotherhood"? To what extent does one's survival necessitate self-delusion? How do social stigmas inform our experience of mental illness?
Notes
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Graduation Date
2015
Semester
Spring
Advisor
Neal, Darlin'
Degree
Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)
College
College of Arts and Humanities
Department
English
Degree Program
Creative Writing
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0006054
URL
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0006054
Language
English
Release Date
November 2020
Length of Campus-only Access
5 years
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Open Access)
Subjects
Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic; Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities
STARS Citation
Rupert, Nickalus, "Lightning Flowers" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1494.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1494