At home

WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
April Lynn Anderson (Creator)
Institution
Western Carolina University (WCU )
Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
Advisor
Deidre Elliott

Abstract: At Home is a work of creative nonfiction in which each chapter is a self-supporting narrative about one period of my experiences in Franklin, North Carolina, before, during, or after the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War. This work illustrates the two-fold front during war-on the battlefield and at home-and concentrates on how war affects those on the home front. Each chapter contains newspaper articles, quotations, song lyrics, and photographs, supplementing the narrative. I have included personal artifacts and artifacts of popular culture in order to give an accurate portrait of my experience at home during the Gulf War and the Iraq War. In this nonfiction work, I illustrate the results of war on my life through seven chapters entitled "Innocence," "Blame," "Homecoming," "Never Forgotten," "Deployment," "Where I Come From," and "At Home." "Innocence" portrays my childhood before the advent of war by describing my hometown, my family memories, and family trips. The tone of the piece changes in "Blame," which illustrates my feelings at the ages of ten and eleven when my father was deployed to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War by showing a teacher's kindness, musical memories, and the influence of the media. "Homecoming" depicts the outcomes of the end of the Persian Gulf War, using music, as well as my father's return to Fort Bragg, North Carolina; a trip to Carolina Beach, North Carolina; and my choice to avoid the news post-Gulf War. The focus of the work shifts in "Never Forgotten" from my childhood to an adult perspective-via my teenage years-and deals with my memories of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent alteration in my view of the news. "Deployment" examines my adult experiences at the age of twenty-three during the Iraq War, using my father's deployment, my role as a teacher, and the memorial service for Staff Sergeant Bobby Franklin. "Where I Come From" details my father's return to Franklin, North Carolina, from Iraq. In the final chapter, "At Home," the tone changes again to one of reflection on my life as a whole and ties the whole piece together

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Thesis (M.F.A.)--Western Carolina University, 2009
Language: English
Date: 2009
Subjects
Anderson, April Lynn
Persian Gulf War, 1991 -- Personal narratives
Iraq War, 2003- -- Personal narratives
Franklin (Macon County, N.C.) -- Biography

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