Claremont Connections is a collection of fictional short stories about the relationships between the generations of women in one family and their friends.

My goal in this thesis is to propose a new theory of truth in fiction. In Chapter One, I will examine David Lewis, Gregory Currie and Alex Byrne’s theories of truth in fiction. By the end of Chapter Two, I will discuss six conditions a theory of truth in fiction must meet (for example, the theory must account for stories in which there is no intelligent life to tell the tale, and also for truths in authorless fictions.) In Chapter Three, I will explain Kendall Walton’s distinction between the “work world” and the “game world” — the fictional world of the story versus the fictional world of the game of make-believe that the reader plays with the story. Finally, I will introduce a new “fictional author,” located in a game world, in order to propose a new theory that satisfies the conditions. / October 2016

This thesis discusses the view which Thomas Wolfe had of womankind. Primarily, this view is discerned and evaluated from Wolfe's fiction.

The purpose of this investigation is to evaluate and synthesize the conflicting views of those critics who deal with the manner in which William Faulkner conceives time in his fiction.

Eight short selections of fiction. "Inventions" consists of two invented creation myths. The three stories in "Dreams" are fantasy tales set in a common dream-world. The selections in "Imitations" are neither fantasy nor science fiction: "Time's Tapering Blade" is an experiment in form; "The Wake" concerns a group of friends dealing with a death; and "Janie, Hold the Light" is based on stories from the author's family about Christmas during the depression of the 1930's.

Deserts! Have Known contains a scholarly preface exploring why writers write, examining the characteristics offictionwriters, and addressing the importance of place, both emotional and geographical, in fiction. Four original short stories are included in this thesis. "Miracle at Mita" depicts an aging surfer trying to overcome his fear of commitment. "Coyote Man" explores a father's guilt and the isolation resulting from that guilt. "Time, and Time Again" traces a young woman's fear of marriage to her memory of her parents' relationship, and "Paraplegia" examines a young woman immobilized by her own lack of self-esteem. These stories are connected through their themes of isolation and reconnection.

The dissertation begins with an introductory chapter that examines the short story cycle as a specific genre, outlines tendencies found in minimalist fiction, and discusses proposed definitions of the short story genre. The introduction examines the problems that short story theorists encounter when they try to.define the short story genre in general. Part of the problem results from the lack of a definition of the short story in the Aristotelian sense of a definition. A looser, less traditional definition of literary genres helps solve some of the problem. Minimalist fiction and the short story cycle are discussed as particular forms of the short story. Sixteen short stories follow the introduction.

The protagonist of each of these stories has the same problem. Without really willing it, he finds himself involved with people whom he really does not like. These people have little regard for his individuality or for his welfare because they are so immersed in their own worlds that they cannot imagine anyone existing outside them. In both stories the protagonist realizes finally that he is being dragged into these worlds against his will. More importantly, both characters realize that passive resistance will not work, that they must resist actively if they are to retain personal dignity and their very identities. Sammy, in "A Cimmerian Holiday," rejects the Ashburns' world by walking away; Andy, in "Darkling I Listen," repudiates the various worlds of his acquaintances by withdrawing into the solitary world of books and music.

The four works in this collection are related by their central character, Tribulat Bonhomet. In "The Swan-Killer," the first, Bonhomet the music lover carries out his carefully planned excursion to kill swans to hear their last songs. "The Eventualists' Banquet," the second work, reports an after-dinner speech in which Bonhomet proposes a method for ridding France of revolutionaries. And the "Motion of Dr. Tribulat Bonhomet" sets forth a plan whereby earthquakes are harnessed to rid the world of poets and artists. The last and longest piece, "Claire Lenoir," a novella, recounts Dr. Bonhomet's visit to the Lenoir home. A highly philosophical work, "Claire Lenoir" explores questions of reality, revenge, and survival beyond death, ending with a bizarre murder and a grotesque climax.

While his Transcendentalist contemporaries were expounding their optimistic philosophy of natural goodness, progress, and perfectibility, Hawthorne probed into the human heart, recording the darkest motives of his characters and writing bitter criticism of life. Around him men were declaring that scientific inventions, political organizations, and religious reforms were ushering in a new era; but Hawthorne viewed the new society as a probable continuation of old evils and a manufacturer of new ones. His fiction has been called "an elaborate study of the centrifugal, . . . a dramatization of all those social and psychological forces that lead to disunion, fragmentation, dispersion, incoherence. Critics generally comment on Hawthorne's obsession with guilt. His pessimistic analysis of the mind, his somber outlook on living, and his personal tendency to solitude are frequently credited to his Puritan ancestry; yet as Arvin points out, "He had no more Puritan blood than Emerson and hundreds of other New Englanders of his time: and who will say that they were obsessed with the spectral presence of guilty. One must go beyond Calvinist theology to comprehend the source of guilt that hovers over the pages of his fiction. His religious, moral, educational, and economic background was so typical of his time and locality that one can hardly believe that the nature of his writing or thinking could have been determined by these factors. Indeed, his imperviousness to contemporary influences causes one to look intensely at his personal life in searching for the explanation of the Hawthorne enigma. An important influence on his writing was his prolonged association with women. From his life in a feminine world and his reaction to that world, he devised the major part of his style, themes, and feminine character types. A review of the facts of his biography will establish the nature of the influence that dominated him as a man and as a writer. And an analysis of his fiction will indicate the extent of that influence on his writing. Although this study will necessarily begin with a review of his life, this thesis is not another biography; for Hawthorne already has a large number of biographers. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the literary influence of his mother, sisters, wife, daughters, and women acquaintances, with particular emphasis on their relation to his themes, style, and character types.