Snapdragon and Other Short Stories, is an exploration of how characters interact with supernatural elements. These stories give the perception of the characters' encounters with supernatural elements, their reactions, and the results of their acceptance or denial of their response to the supernatural. These stories are not genre fantasy pieces that include dragons, wizards, and the like. The supernatural is presented along the lines of magical realism. Magical realism differs from fantasy in that elements of the miraculous can appear along side of reality while seeming natural and unforced. In his 1949 preface to The Kingdom of This World Alejo Carpentier first defined magical realism as "the practice of melding everyday realism indistinguishably with elements of magic and myth" (Taylor 2).
In Dead Zone a young woman who adheres strictly to what can be proven scientifically and factually, is confronted with the ghosts of the Interstate 4 Dead Zone. In Dead Girl Pearls a high school girl is faced with the disappearance of her best friend, and what her dream reveals to her about the disappearance and her own friendship. An old woman in The Color Stealer tells the story of a young man who seeks to have his color vision restored to him for the sake of love, and the price its restoration carries. In China Doll a woman is taken in by a man as his possession and shows the importance and value of belonging to one's self. Snapdragon is the story of a young woman who realizes, upon recognizing her ability to overhear people's thoughts, that changing herself to suit others is not giving her the life she thought she wanted.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:honorstheses1990-2015-1686 |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| Creators | Davis, Janelle J. |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | HIM 1990-2015 |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds