• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-2008 The aB ck Road to Murfreesboro Ashley Scott oM ser University of Tennessee - Knoxville Recommended Citation Moser, Ashley Scott, "The aB ck Road to Murfreesboro. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2008. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/412 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Ashley Scott osM er entitled "The aB ck Road to Murfreesboro." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Michael Knight, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Alan Wier, Mike Keene Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Ashley Scott Moser entitled “ The Back Road to Murfreesboro.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Michael Knight, Major Professor We have read this thesis] and recommend its acceptance: Alan Wier Mike Keene Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) THE BACK ROAD TO MURFREESBORO A Thesis Presented for the Master of Arts Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Ashley Scott Moser May 2008 Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. - Dylan Thomas “Fern Hill” ~ ii ~ Acknowledgements Whatever it takes to make a writer, whatever grit and resolve and perspiration, I owe in large part to two outstanding professors, Michael Knight and Allen Wier. This collection, and my belief in myself as a writer, would not exist without their counsel, critical and creative, over the years. I thank them both for the enormous influence they unknowingly had on me. I would like to thank all my friends over the years at the University of Tennessee, old and new, especially those who stuck by me through the difficult times. You, too, have made an incredible impact on this collection and on my life. Finally, I would like to thank my family: to my mother and father, I love you both; to my brother, Paul, you are my hero; to my sister, Melea, and brother, Glen, I‟m so proud of you both, and if as adults you live up to half the promise you‟ve set for yourselves as children, anything can be yours – dream big. ~ iii ~ Abstract This project was conceived as a multi-form, multi-media piece in which each work of fiction, poetry, or photography is fully intended to both stand on its own and contribute to an overall feeling for the entire collection. It is in the juxtaposition of these various works that the audience can gain a greater appreciation for the entire collection as well as for each individual piece contained within. This collection explores the dissatisfaction and alienation of contemporary life, and depicts characters, objects, and settings that are all in some way disconnected or empty. The overall stance is negative, of frustrated desire, in the hope that it may serve as a warning call against what is shown. ~ iv ~ Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Time and Distance ................................................................................................ 13 Troglodytes ........................................................................................................... 14 The Space Between ............................................................................................... 41 The Back Road to Murfreesboro........................................................................... 42 Modern Life .......................................................................................................... 62 How to Keep Your Distance ................................................................................. 63 Reconciling the Future .......................................................................................... 64 You Can Never Go Home Twice .......................................................................... 65 Modern Life 2 ....................................................................................................... 66 Remembrance of Things Past ............................................................................... 85 The Trouble of Forgetting ..................................................................................... 86 Cleaning My Grandfather‟s Coat .......................................................................... 87 Learning Philosophy, pt. 1 .................................................................................... 88 For You on St. Valentine‟s Day ............................................................................ 89 Transience ............................................................................................................. 91 Ode to What Could Have Been ............................................................................. 92 Hibiscus Buttons ................................................................................................... 93 Before .................................................................................................................. 107 All Roads Lead to Rome ..................................................................................... 108 Ablution .............................................................................................................. 109 Modern Life 3: Straight Is the Way ................................................................... 128 Night Lights ........................................................................................................ 129 Some Dreams Are Bigger Than Others .............................................................. 146 Quiet War ............................................................................................................ 147 Neighbors ............................................................................................................ 148 What She Thinks One Year Later ....................................................................... 151 Modern Life 4: Beginning the Journey .............................................................. 152 Roadsong............................................................................................................. 153 Vita ...................................................................................................................... 171 ~ v ~ Introduction My parents divorced when I was three and my older brother five. For the next five years, until she remarried, my mother struggled to raise two rambunctious boys on her own, working full time and taking college courses on the side. Thinking of them in hindsight, I see now how truly formative these years were. I don‟t know whether it was something he learned or if it is some trick of his genetic wiring, but my brother has always been a storyteller. I, on the other hand, have always been a questioner – one reason why I pursued an undergraduate degree in philosophy is because I fell so naturally into it – I‟ve always wanted explanations for everything. Our mother worked incredibly hard to provide for us, but this also meant that she could not spend as much time with us as she wanted; most of my time was spent with my brother, and consequently most of my questions were directed to him. My brother struggled with our father‟s absence in his own way, and part of his response to it was stepping into that vacuum for me. He was a child himself, and had no more answers to my questions than I did; pair a natural storyteller with the questions of a precocious child, and the result was that from an early age I was exposed continually to a fanciful view of the world and how it works. Why there are shadows, where ants go when they crawl underground, how roads are made – there was an answer for everything. It may not have been true necessarily, but I think this is partly where my aesthetic developed: what is truth, who defines it, and why does it matter so much? “Objective” reality has never been one of my utmost concerns, because no one‟s experience of it is ever objective. I experienced these fantastical explanations as truth, believed them ~ 1 ~ wholeheartedly, and that is what mattered. My brother wasn‟t lying to me, he was providing an answer – not the answer, because that wasn‟t important. And so I learned at a very young age that the world is not – or at least does not have to be – a simple matter of how things are. I loved science and its ability to provide answers, excelled at it, in fact; but I also recognized that there could be more to an understanding of the world. In

Load more

  176

Copy Link