Widows' Breath: Grief Fractures

<p>“Based on a true story” applies to this collection of grief fractures. Each is based on a thread of someone’s true story of death and loss. A combination of autobiographic fiction and speculative non-fiction, these fractures create a thematic braiding of grief as they explore the human survival of significant loss. Dichotomies include the narrative voice as both inside the experience and outside, grief survivor yet physician observer, Native American and Far East ancestral energy, resistance to the ultimate acceptance of the path no longer linear but more as a cubist painting. </p> <p>Grief and trauma writing teeters on the ledge where the truth shatters, resulting in pieces of unreality fusing into an entity that may barely resemble the former self. This manuscript is set in Appalachian Kentucky with nature imagery wherein the place and its culture frame each protagonist’s exploration. As they deconstruct their experience of grief, vacillate through past and present thinking, memorializing the lost one while struggling toward a new identity, grieve sexuality without the partner, fight addiction, relive child trauma, and limp through mental illness they exist in breath-by-breath survival. </p> <p>The intended audience is anyone experiencing death and separation, cultural or environmental grief, or with an intent to find a balanced life after loss. </p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English and Theatre

Grantor dc:publisher

Eastern Kentucky University

Year

2020

Author dc:creator

• Bates, Artie Ann

• Aging
• Environmental
• Grief
• Loss
• Mental Illness
• Relationship
• Creative Writing

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2020 Artie Ann Bates

Repository record dc:identifier

https://encompass.eku.edu/etd/684

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:encompass.eku.edu:etd-1682