Item Details

abstract

Roger Moody, a gravedigger living under the weight of age and sorrow, is in the process of carrying out his work when he encounters a strange man who refers to himself as “the Carnival.” Renaming himself Randall in a bid to appeal to Moody, the man confides that he is isolated in the forest by an obscured, otherworldly power. He wills Moody to stay and talk with him. Unwilling or unable to reveal who or what he is, he shares the stories of other people he has encountered in the forest. In the spring, he sees Marian, Catherine, and their mother opening an unexpected gift. In the summer, he meets the injured Lorne who will reappear with a startling request. Iris, the figure of fall, is contending with loss and growing increasingly disturbed in her isolation. His seasonal tales rattle at Moody’s sympathies, and he finds himself unsettled by the nature of The Carnival’s stories—and the man himself. Inspired by the gothic and American Romantic genres and structured after Northrop Frye’s mythoi of seasons, “Burying the Carnival” is a modern, magical refashioning of the ritualistic, patterned literature of years past.

subject

contributor

Overdurf, Amanda (author)

Wilson, Eric (committee chair)

Holdridge, Jefferson (committee member)

Catanzano, Amy (committee member)

date

2022-05-24T08:36:09Z (accessioned)

2022 (issued)

degree

English (discipline)

2027-06-01 (liftdate)

embargo

2027-06-01 (terms)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/100758 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

title

Burying the Carnival

type

Thesis