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.