The pop-up principle.

Abstract

This collection of short stories follows the conventions of postmodern literary fiction, and features conflicts between middle-class family members who predominantly live in Texas and Oklahoma. My main objective in this thesis is twofold. First, I want to encourage my reader to step outside of his or her worldview and into a life unlike their own. The narrators in this collection range from a game warden in California to an eight-year-old schoolgirl from Texas. Each point-of-view character differs from the preceding or succeeding narrator in categories such as gender, age, location, and occupation. Secondly, I want readers to contemplate the pop-up principle, namely the notion that we are all flat characters in someone else's story. Like turning the pages of a children's pop-up book, every speaker first appears as a rounded individual, full of his or her own memories and goals and troubles, but in each ensuing tale, that same person flattens and merely serves as a background character in someone else's life. The narrators in these stories evaluate each other, and even judge one another, without fully understanding the situation of the previous speaker. This allows for a postmodern collection with a sense of dramatic irony between each segment--only the reader realizes the deeper connection between the individuals narrating.