Clownd

Clownd, a novel-length project, focuses on the intersection of gender, class and language to examine the power words hold and how normative structures of the English language impact and reflect our social systems. It does this through telling the story of Melissa Masters, a young girl trapped in an isolated rural area who contends with intersectional disadvantage. The work explores how language navigates power and truth, and how language affects or informs the pivotal choices she must make on how best to live. Her language shifts with her age and understanding of power, how and when to wield it, where to find beauty and how to create joy. Research to develop this novel included a wide survey of similarly themed fiction and non-fiction works as well as referencing sociology and psychology texts that focus on class and gender, especially with rural or poor female-identifying persons. Psycholinguistic texts especially as they reference poetry were also reviewed to understand the impacts of sound in word choice and how that affects language acquisition and production and the scope of what words can represent and limitations on what word choice links to outside of the relationship to visual imagery. Clownd explores themes of poverty, isolation, substance abuse and women, violence and mental illness. It explores belonging and exclusion and how gender intersects with autonomy and power. The goal of this novel is to provoke discussion and understanding of the constraints facing women and girls in poverty and isolation. It examines how to find joyful power and how to attempt centering wonder when facing a multiplicity of social challenges.Arts, Faculty ofGraduat