Northern Michigan University NMU Commons All NMU Master's Theses Student Works 2010 Junk City Issac J. Coleman Northern Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.nmu.edu/theses Recommended Citation Coleman, Issac J., "Junk City" (2010). All NMU Master's Theses. 367. https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/367 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at NMU Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in All NMU Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of NMU Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. JUNK CITY By Isaac J. Coleman THESIS Submitted to Northern Michigan University In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Graduate Studies Office 2010 SIGNATURE APPROVAL FORM This thesis by [Your Name] is recommended for approval by the student’s Thesis Committee and Department Head in the Department of English and by the Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies. ____________________________________________________________ Committee Chair: Russell Prather Date ____________________________________________________________ First Reader: Jennifer Howard Date ____________________________________________________________ Second Reader: [Name] Date ____________________________________________________________ Department Head: Dr. Raymond J. Ventre Date ____________________________________________________________ Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies: Date Dr. Cynthia Prosen OLSON LIBRARY NORTHERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY THESIS DATA FORM In order to catalog your thesis properly and enter a record in the OCLC international bibliographic data base, Olson Library must have the following requested information to distinguish you from others with the same or similar names and to provide appropriate subject access for other researchers. NAME: Coleman, Isaac James DATE OF BIRTH: November 28, 1979 ABSTRACT JUNK CITY By Isaac J. Coleman This is the tale of two punk-rock brothers and their struggles as narrated from the perspective of various objects with limited omniscience. Jerrod, the younger brother, is a painter who wants to be enrolled in an alternative art academy that recently rejected his application. Feeling that he didn't receive fair consideration, he has decided to illegally paint a mural on the side of the institution to gain recognition. Jake, the older brother, is a drug dealer who becomes addicted to his own product after he finds out that the woman he has been seeing is pregnant with his child. i Copyright by Isaac James Coleman 2010 ii This is dedicated to Johnny Mild. Thanks for going lawn ornament swapping with me. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks go to Russell Prather and Jennifer Howard for their willingness to explore this peculiar world with me. Thanks to Nancy Gold for all the stimulating discussions, on and off the beach. Thanks to my wife for always supporting me. This thesis uses the guidelines provided by the MLA Style Manual and the Department of English. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .............................................................................................................1 Body: Chapter One ..........................................................................................................9 Chapter Two .........................................................................................................11 Chapter Three .......................................................................................................16 Chapter Four .........................................................................................................18 Chapter Five .........................................................................................................20 Chapter Six ............................................................................................................27 Chapter Seven.......................................................................................................32 Chapter Eight ........................................................................................................35 Chapter Nine ........................................................................................................44 Chapter Ten ..........................................................................................................51 Chapter Eleven .....................................................................................................53 Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................................57 Chapter Thirteen ..................................................................................................60 Chapter Fourteen .................................................................................................62 Chapter Fifteen .....................................................................................................70 Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................................78 Chapter Seventeen ...............................................................................................87 Chapter Eighteen .................................................................................................93 Chapter Nineteen .................................................................................................104 Chapter Twenty ...................................................................................................112 Chapter Twenty-one ............................................................................................123 v Chapter Twenty-two ...........................................................................................129 Chapter Twenty-three .........................................................................................138 Chapter Twenty-four ...........................................................................................141 Chapter Twenty-five ...........................................................................................147 Chapter Twenty-six .............................................................................................151 Chapter Twenty-seven ........................................................................................154 Chapter Twenty-eight .........................................................................................161 Chapter Twenty-nine ..........................................................................................172 Works Cited .............................................................................................................201 vi INTRODUCTION For my thesis, I have written a novella, Junk City, which combines both a traditional and experimental narrative. Each chapter simultaneously involves two perspectives: one of an object and one of a human. The objects have their own consciousness, and they also have limited omniscience over one human character per chapter. The perspective could be called limited double omniscience. In various ways, each object is an object of desire. Most of the time, the objects are desired by the owners; other times, the objects are desirous of the human characters. One object that exemplifies mutual desire is the red die that Jake found. He rolls the die to make decisions for himself. He desires answers from it. And because Jake rescued the die from the street, the die desires to give Jake what he truly desires. The die cannot move itself to make a particular number turn up, but its consciousness roots for Jake to get the number he wants. The concept of using objects as an integral part of narration isn’t radically new. In the novella, Jealousy, by Alain Robbe-Grillet, the story is told from the perspective of a narrator who never appears in the novel. The narrator is jealous of the men who interact with the female owner, but it is merely an objective 1 observer of the actions taking place around and within the premises. It is argued that the narrator is the house itself. In the novel, Skinny Legs and All, by Tom Robbins, some of the central characters are objects. Through the use of magic, several items, (spoon, sock, stick, can-o-beans, and conch shell), have become ‚alive,‛ that is, they have acquired the powers of self propulsion, and the ability to ‚speak‛ to one another. These objects are sentient characters, but an omniscient third person maintains control over the narrative as a whole. My approach is slightly different from previous works of fiction. Unlike Robbin’s novel, my novella is narrated by multiple objects with different points of view. My objects are not capable of acting on their own. They are capable of communicating with one another, but this rarely happens in my story as I wanted to keep the focus on my human characters. Most of the time, the objects are more interested in their human counterparts. These objects of obsession know the thoughts of the people who handle them. They absorb the consciousness of their handlers through a kind of telepathy. In part, my goal was to challenge myself and to experiment. I wanted to play with how people react to fictional narratives. We tend to view third-person narrators as infallible, godlike voices. Readers disassociate these voices from the fallible human who created them. So I am asking the reader to accept that the 2 authorial voice in my work comes from an object rather than a mysterious third- person. My other ambition for