Graduation Year
2005
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Granting Department
English
Major Professor
Rita Ciresi, M.F.A.
Committee Member
John H. Fleming, Ph.D.
Committee Member
William Morris, Ph.D.
Keywords
Women, Love, Abuse, Relationships, Loss
Abstract
Mosaic is the story of Alicia O'Day, a woman who looks back at her life from the vantage point of middle age and attempts to arrange the shards of her past into something meaningful. As she relates her story, illustrating her errors, we realize she has changed and grown enough to see herself with added wisdom and humor. The chaos of her younger days is seen as a learning process. The broken vessel has been mended, and the scars from the seams add interest to the original piece.
As Alicia reviews her life, she glues the broken fragments back into place and proclams them part of a whole, a work of art. She begins to feel less like a fragmented woman, and more like a multi-faceted human being who has lived through a series of trials. She comes to realize that her friend Jeffrey is not really the glue that has held her together. Instead, she finds that all along the way, it was her own strength of character that caused her to persevere.
When completed, Mosaic will be a novel representing the complete picture of a woman's life as she understands it from the vantage point of middle age, a time to re-evaluate the past and start over with a wiser plan.
Scholar Commons Citation
Kennedy, Vicki L., "Mosaic" (2005). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/720
