Login | Register

Past Lives: Stories

Title:

Past Lives: Stories

Simoneau, Andre (2021) Past Lives: Stories. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

[thumbnail of Simoneau_MA_F2021.pdf]
Preview
Text (application/pdf)
Simoneau_MA_F2021.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access.
486kB

Abstract

Is it possible to escape the past, or are its consequences inevitable, fate little more than cause and effect? In seeking an answer, Past Lives grapples with the inscrutability of the human condition and our experience of time. Each story evokes the intimate relation – sometimes harmonious, just as often dissonant – between the self and its reflection in memory. In this, the collection is an exercise in anamnesis, that is, learning as a form of reminiscence, a recollection
of the mysterious knowledge that forever eludes us, yet somehow also precedes and informs every facet of our lives. Each of the
characters in the collection struggles in their own way to span the gulf that separates their present circumstance from the past that engendered it, though the two often appear so alien from one another as to be irreconcilable. What emerges from this struggle is story, present and past woven together into a narrative fabric that chafes our skin even as it shields us from the elements that threaten us from without. Past Lives asserts that we are what we tell ourselves we are, and that all determination is self-determination.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > English
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Simoneau, Andre
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:English
Date:September 2021
Thesis Supervisor(s):Byrnes, Terence
ID Code:988800
Deposited By: ANDRE SIMONEAU
Deposited On:29 Nov 2021 16:47
Last Modified:29 Nov 2021 16:47
All items in Spectrum are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. The use of items is governed by Spectrum's terms of access.

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads per month over past year

Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
- Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
Back to top Back to top