Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Honors Paper

Degree Name

English Creative Writing-BA

Department

English

Advisor

Dr. Shannon Lakanen

First Committee Member

Dr. Patricia Frick

Second Committee Member

Dr. Amy Johnson

Keywords

personal essay, creative writing, entrapment

Subject Categories

Arts and Humanities | Creative Writing | Higher Education | Nonfiction

Abstract

This project is a collection of segments told through personal essay ruminating on the author’s experiences with feeling confined—in space, in emotion, in mind, in life—and working to find whether there is an end to this entrapment or a freedom to be found. The critical preface explores the rationale for the collection, and explains the genre and mode choice of the lyric personal essay. The preface reflects on the literary influences for this project, and situates it in relation to contemporary essayists’ work, with attention to Heidi Czerweic, Henry David Thoreau, and Lia Purpura. The collection comprises 24 short segments, moving between imagined experiences of animals or inanimate objects and lived experiences of the persona to explore the confinements within and outside of the self. The essays explore the physical and psychological boundaries created by mental illness as well as societal and parental pressures. Through depictions of physical confinement, religious pressure, fear of change, and more, the collection details the constraints of being human.

Licensing Permission

Copyright, all rights reserved. Fair Use

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Acknowledgement 2

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