Spirals
Abstract
The purpose of the novel project Spirals is to examine small town mentalities,
which tend to have a very rigid and defined world-view, through post-modem and
deconstruction critical lenses. For the purpose of getting these critical frameworks across
in the novel, the story is mostly centered behind the point-of-view of teenagers.
Teenagers are most likely to be at odds with the communal mindset and the most likely to
experience the flux and confusion associated with dissonance with the majority moods, a
characteristic that makes it easy to portray post-modernism and deconstruction. The
purpose of Spirals is foremost to examine the tensions that exist between these literary
theories and certain philosophies and practices that rely heavily on accepted truths and
rigid definitions. Spirals explores these tensions by breaking with the traditional plot
"arc" that is almost always standard with story-telling, examining tensions that exist
between and within a small town community and characters that exhibit drastically
different philosophical traits, and finally by alluding heavily to Joseph Heller's Catch-22,
which I believe to instrumental in laying down many of the principals found in Spirals.