Fisticuffs

Abstract

This thesis project examines the essay in both fiction and non-fiction. The introductory chapter considers the literary structure as a vehicle to reveal actual events, creating a dialogue, a trust between the essayist and the reader. The nonfiction essayist, then, is charged to write about the actual events not those that have been invented even as the fictional essayist is released to conjure and create a new world, an imagined space. Both fiction and nonfiction writers use dialogue and action to describe characters and events. The nonfiction writer must search for the tone that was present at the time of the actual event while the fiction writer has the ability to create the words and shape the mood. The remaining chapters are original essays, both fiction and nonfiction, that are centered on the theme of conflict and the juxtaposition of the physical and spiritual encountered within.