College - Author 1
College of Liberal Arts
Department - Author 1
Modern Languages and Literatures Department
Date
12-2010
Primary Advisor
William Martinez Jr.
Abstract/Summary
This project is a fictional novella which manipulates the boundaries of identity and time in order to explore the ways in which and to what extent one depends upon the other. Because society converts time into a fixed entity of measurement for practicality’s sake, one of the attempts of this novella is to foreground the ambiguity of time so as to illustrate that the confinements that society has placed upon it are not characteristics of time itself. Upon establishing the indefinite nature of time, the text then ponders what becomes of our notion of identity if we are not permitted to think in terms of past, present, and future.
In attempt to investigate these concepts, the novella’s story is not presented along a standard linear timeline. Instead, each part is told as if it were the present so that none can be definitely identified as being before or after another. Additionally, in order to further explore the nature of identity in this setting, the protagonist experiences each part of the story as a different organism that possesses “memories” of other such experiences but in no particular chronological order.
I believe this project is the culmination of my experience as a Modern Languages and Literatures student because it not only demonstrates a capacity to express myself in another language without compromising my ability to explore complex and creative concepts, but also symbolizes through its plot a recognition of other types of people and their ways of living, using the cross-cultural medium of literature.
URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/mllsp/7