Graduate Program

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2007

Thesis Director

Daiva Markelis

Thesis Committee Member

Unknown

Thesis Committee Member

Unknown

Abstract

I have written a creative non fiction piece concerning my experiences living amongst the Tarahumara people of Mexico. The piece utilizes the combination of standard prose with a letter format. The letters are addressed to my sister Alex, but none were actual letters in the form they appear in the thesis. The letter format was chosen because it allowed me to share events without the need to explain in great detail either the events or my feelings concerning the events. The prose format then allowed me to contemplate the events directly and indirectly that are brought up in the letters. The piece in its entirety is meant to recreate memory. Therefore, some events lack detail while others are given greater amounts of detail and thought. Often the prose is meant to either precede or follow the subject of the letters, though at times it is used more as a platform for feelings not necessarily related to a particular event. Because of the overall ideology of the piece as memory, I have not included chapter breaks. Instead, photographs of the Tarahumara serve the double purpose of reading breaks and an Aristotelian visual representation of memory.

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