Bedazzler

Grant, Jessica (2003) Bedazzler. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (10MB)

Abstract

My thesis has two components: a novella and a brief critical essay. In the essay, entitled This Place is a Circus: Juggling Voice, Parody, and Silence in Bedazzler, I explain my artistic goals and some of the difficulties I encountered in writing the creative piece. -- Bedazzler is a novella in ten chapters. At the centre of the story is a diamond necklace, originally given to Ulysses S. Grant by the emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Celie, the current heir and owner, has four granddaughters: Lucy, Claudia, Gwen, and Devorah. When they are children, their grandmother tells them: The first of you to sing professionally will inherit the necklace. They grow up to be writers, however, not singers. Celie makes an adjustment. She will hold a different kind of contest: a short story for the necklace. She imposes only one restriction: Each story must begin with the same sentence, selected by her. -- The novella opens with Lucy, the protagonist, having lost the contest. Knowing she will never inherit the necklace, she steals it. Bedazzler is her story -- the story of the people, places, and object that bedazzle her, and of her struggle to become heroic -- and bedazzling -- herself.

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