Master's Theses

Department

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Abstract

Bedford is the name of a small town in Missouri near where my parents lived when I was a boy. (It is also the name of small towns in Iowa. and several other states.) The town presented here is not Bedford, but it is quite similar. Many of the characters are modeled after people I knew then and have known, but none exactly. Even if I had wanted to, I found it was impossible to include all of the details about any one person. Still, most of the characters had a counterpart, at least in my reminiscence of what it was like then. Also, none of the characters are pure creations, unless Bill Hawkins or Laughing Larry might be. But then I've known farmers and people like Bill Hawkins and Larry O’Connor, people who went at things the way they did, and so even they aren't creations in the strict sense of the word. In writing "Bedford" I found that I had to take a base in reality and write from that point, seeing what developed.

Keywords

American Literature, Fiction, Authors, Missouri, Rural areas, Country life

Advisor

David L. Ison

Date of Award

Summer 1971

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Rights

© The Author(s)

Comments

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