A COLLECTION of SHORT STORIES by SHIRLEY MASON
A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES by SHIRLEY MASON LEWTER, B.A. A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved Accepted August, 1993 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe special thanks to Professors Doug Crowell and Barbara Rodman, whose creative writing classes first inspired me to travel this route. Their suggestions and encouragement have been invaluable. Thanks, also, to Professor John Samson, who patiently read this manuscript and offered his critical advice. Finally, I thank classmates and friends who commented upon these stories. Their understanding of them, as well as their questions concerning them, helped me a great deal. Frank O'Connor, in The Lonely Art: A Study of the Short Story, states that the writing of short stories is "a lonely art, and [writers] too are lonely." Were it not for the people mentioned above, I would have to agree with him. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION • .••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 1 II. MINKS •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 6 III. BROTHER, MY SIBYL •.••••••.•••••••••••••••••••••• 2 3 IV. LITTLE LOVE NEST ON THE TRACKS •••••••••••••••••• 34 v. PINK CRUISE ...................•.•.........•..... 40 VI. LA PETITE MORT DE RENART: UN FABLIAU •••••••••••• 60 VII. JIMMY CRACK CORN AND I DON'T CARE ••••••••••••••• 68 VIII. LAST DANCE AT THE WHITE GODDESS BURLESQUE ••••••• 82 IX. CHAMOIS AFTERNOON ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 95 iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION "You can call every prostitute a Theban Sphinx. They babble not simply, but in riddles." (Athenaeus) " ... you yourselves are the riddle." (Freud [concerning women]) "Shall I create a world?" (Oedipa Maas/The Crying of Lot 49) In 1948, Robert Graves stated in The White Goddess, that .•• woman is not a poet: she is either a Muse or she is nothing.
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