Date of Graduation
Spring 2017
Degree
Master of Arts in English
Department
English
Committee Chair
Michael Czyzniejewski
Abstract
My thesis is a science fiction novella, entitled Valkyrie. My novella focuses on the character Valerie Byrne and her mission to save a utopian city, created in the wake of a third world war, from a megalomaniac android named Dr. Viper. Valerie witnessed her parent's death when she was nine years old, at the hands of the tyrannical government that was responsible for the war. During the conflict, she willingly transformed herself into a cyborg so that she may enact her revenge, and helped overthrow the tyranny that murdered her family. The novella follows her twenty years after the war ended, living as a wanderer and trying to find a new purpose beyond an aimless killing machine. That her abilities are embedded into her body makes it impossible to forget the pain. My thesis addresses the themes of revenge, loss, war, militarism and mechanization. The focal points I am using are Milan Kundera's writings on identity in The Art of Novel, specifically those pertaining to man being as much a participant in the world as caught in the trap of it, and the meditations of Dolezel and Deleuze, in Heterocosmica and A Thousand Plateaus, on oppressive and destructive societies. Valerie breaks the trap by breaking the cycle of the mechanized world taking advantage of the powerless.
Keywords
man, machine, freedom, oppression, hero
Subject Categories
English Language and Literature
Copyright
© Eric Philip Yanders
Recommended Citation
Yanders, Eric Philip, "Valkyrie" (2017). MSU Graduate Theses/Dissertations. 3185.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/3185
