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ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Take a Picture: A Novel

Bell, David James
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1116246020

Abstract Details

2005, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature.
The creative component of my dissertation is a novel called Take A Picture which tells the story of sixty-seven year old Jack Hoskins, a childless widower and the owner of the last independent funeral home in the fictional town of Dove Point, Indiana. As a large corporation encroaches on Mr. Hoskins’ business, he finds himself questioning the efficacy of his profession and searching for a different way to serve his community. His decision to begin photographing the dead has enormous repercussions for both his business and his personal life. Take A Picture , like all of my fiction, operates in the realistic tradition and has been inspired by the works of authors from Herman Melville to Richard Ford. The critical component of my dissertation is an essay titled “Unfathomable Me: The Privileged View of Nature in Melville’s Moby-Dick.” My essay argues that Ishmael seeks an unimpeded, unmediated experience of the natural world, and this occurs most notably in the chapter, “The Grand Armada.” In this chapter, Ishmael looks down into the ocean depths and witnesses a pod of whales mating and nursing their young. At this moment, human beings become decentralized in the natural world, and Ishmael is able to see the whales as “subject” and not “object.” Much of nineteenth-century American literature—most notably the works of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman—deals with this desire for first-hand knowledge of the natural world as well as an intense concern with recognizing oneself as a member of the larger human community.
Brock Clarke (Advisor)
248 p.
Literature, American
Novel; Fiction; American; Funerals; Funeral Directors; Small Towns; Midwest

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bell, D. J. (2005). Take a Picture: A Novel [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1116246020

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bell, David. Take a Picture: A Novel. 2005. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1116246020.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bell, David. "Take a Picture: A Novel." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1116246020

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1116246020
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© 2005, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.