What We Hide is a collection of memoir essays that explores the themes of mystery and deception in personal relationships, specifically within familial and romantic ones. Though the essays in the collection explore the decades from early in the narrator's childhood through her move to Florida for graduate school, the narrator's keen discernment of the world around her and her curiosity for what experiences shape a person's character remain constant. Many essays explore the extent of her father's alcoholism and the consequences of it, as well as the narrator's obsession over the possible sources of his addictions. Other essays examine the narrator's relationships with men beginning when she enters high school and question the extent to which her strained relationship with her father both excuses and/or explains the way she deceives and allows herself to be deceived in these relationships. What We Hide is endlessly implicating and looks for the accountability of these situations from all sources. The narrator delves into the sneakiness of her parents' courtship, the accusations that become commonplace during their divorce, the ways in which the narrator lies to family, friends, and boyfriends for her own selfish motives, and how each of these experiences shapes subsequent ones. What We Hide uses personal experience, emails, and newspaper articles to demonstrate the vulnerability, contradictions, and complications that are inherent in all of us as humans and how these weaknesses manifest themselves in the relationships with those we are closest with.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-2329 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| Creators | Bowcott, Ashley |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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