Honors College Theses
Publication Date
2016
Major
Writing & Linguistics (B.A.)
Document Type and Release Option
Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)
Faculty Mentor
Jared Sexton
Abstract
A novel grounded in the restoration of a country through mandated use of pharmaceutical drugs in humanity’s increasingly fervent desire for unattainable perfection at the expense of emotional and physical stature. Reformation explores the far-reaching consequences of everyday human decisions and their collective development into a dystopian society. Because the value of emotion is a fundamental question in this project, I structured my writing process around the creative arts of music, literature, and paintings. Music artists of The Naked and Famous were a major influence in the disconnected tone and themes of power struggles through argumentation with the song “Waltz” on the album In Rolling Waves. Emotion is best conjured through creativity, and in exploring the importance of emotion for my characters, I studied its importance in myself. The ambitions of my antagonist center around combating climate change, and his means of achieving this lay in pharmaceutical drugs. Clean water, for example, is becoming rare in many parts of the world, as was exemplified in the Flint, Michigan scandal. Pharmaceutical drugs yield massive profits for very little cost. With this artificial resource, I wanted to investigate a fictional scenario where well-intended means are warped in everyday decisions to gradually produce a dystopia. Very few dystopian novels try this. The appendix includes world-building notes and reveals process.
Recommended Citation
Conner, Michael, "Reformation - A Novel" (2016). Honors College Theses. 195.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/honors-theses/195
