Drawing off my own experiences with marriage, my dissertation, Fair Copy, explores marriage as an identity for a contemporary American woman. The dissertation is divided into three sections that loosely correspond to the categories of girlhood, courtship, and marriage. Yet these categories are revealed to be inaccurate; drawing the line between each is increasingly difficult, especially as poems "talk" from one section to another. This is further complicated by the fact that the narrator has been divorced; poems dealing with the first marriage and its failure are actually in the "courtship" section, not the "marriage" section. Even the lines between one marriage and another are not firmly drawn, as the man who will be the second husband is also in the courtship section, in the poem, [He is alive, this morning '], in which "no one (everyone) knew we were, /secretly, fucking/." The manuscript asks how a woman can reconcile her place in a society where she is a, "Colorless princess with conical hat,/" who must "assemble your ensemble to the virginal standard '/," if her experience has been that of a "yes girl" who "had such fun I can't/say I remember." / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2010. / February 3, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references. / David Kirby, Professor Directing Dissertation; Amanda Porterfield, University Representative; Margaret Kennedy Hanson, Committee Member; Andrew Epstein, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_183636 |
| Contributors | Stafford, Rebecca Hazelton (authoraut), Kirby, David (professor directing dissertation), Porterfield, Amanda (university representative), Hanson, Margaret Kennedy (committee member), Epstein, Andrew (committee member), Department of English (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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