There Is a Time

Author

Kathryn M. Sirls, Utah State University

Date of Award:

5-2011

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

English

Committee Chair(s)

Jennifer Sinor

Committee

Jennifer Sinor

Committee

Brock Dethier

Committee

Charles Waugh

Abstract

This thesis consists of a creatively constructed nonfiction memoir told in eight chapters. It begins with an introductory chapter written in the present tense, in which the narrator struggles with the notions of life and death while wandering the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France. She reflects on being among hundreds of thousands who have died knowing that, very recently, she almost died herself. The chapters that follow take the reader on a journey through the narrator's life and what led up to her near death experience. The story culminates with a return to the present, back in the cemetery, where the narrator comes to terms with the notion that her life is a gift.

This piece is an examination of the human experience through one young woman's eyes, a look at life and death and the events that give us the will to live. The narrator explores her own diseases and observations about her own body in the context of the human experience—how we cope with disease and attempt to move past artificial ideals set for the human body, coming to a better understanding of ourselves.

Checksum

923c4589d07f64ecccee297ef41205f2

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on June 10, 2011.

Recommended Citation

Sirls, Kathryn M., "There Is a Time" (2011). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023. 959.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/959