University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 3-27-2008 The Drowned Girl Karen Brown Gonzalez University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Gonzalez, Karen Brown, "The Drowned Girl" (2008). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/265 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Drowned Girl by Karen Brown Gonzalez A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Co-Major Professor: Rita Ciresi, M.F.A. Co-Major Professor: Hunt Hawkins, Ph.D. A. Manette Ansay, M.F.A. William T. Ross, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 27, 2008 Keywords: stories, women, Connecticut, suburbia, adultery © Copyright 2008, Karen Brown Gonzalez The girl is leagues and leagues away from the first kiss of prologue, but she, throat caked with mud, white skin scaled verdigris, must be the message within the bottle. —Eve Alexandra, “The Drowned Girl” Acknowledgments Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications for publishing portions of this work in slightly altered form: “Send Me” in American Fiction: The Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, Number 4, 1992, “Affairs of a Career Girl” and “Tropical Passions” as Things I Did While You Were Gone, in Epoch, Vol.