No One Needs to Know About the Yard Fire

Abstract

This thesis investigate science fiction, horror, and absurdist narrative traditions within the context of the short story. In terms of style, these stories draw inspiration from Nicolai Gogol, Franz Kafka, Daniil Kharms, Etgar Keret, George Saunders, and Donald Barthelme. Above all, these pieces offer an examination of their characters’ various interior experiences (experiences involving anxiety, self-doubt, guilt, loneliness, fear of death, despair, love) by way of an exterior exploration of the grotesque, the preposterous, and the cartoonish. In this way, these stories employ the sitcoms and sci-fi/horror films of my youth as imaginative lenses through which to better access and understand the lives of other people.