Output details
29 - English Language and Literature
Bath Spa University
Dark Woods
Dark Woods is a thriller for a teenage authorship. Its research questions include: 1 Can one successfully combine metaphysical reflection with a narrative written in the thriller genre in a way that is accessible to a modern teenage readership? 2 What are the relationships in the thriller between the interior mental state of an individual, their intentions, and the exterior world? One might create a mental image of a cake and subsequently create a real-world representation of that image; conversely, if we see a cake in the external world, we are able to store a mental representation of that object. What would it take for objects that never existed or no longer exist to be physically created or re-created from a mental image? The notion that such creations could then go on to exist independently of the mind that first postulated them is explored in the narrative. The old Struwwelpeter nursery rhyme is used as a memory that becomes a living, breathing antagonist. This particular combination of metaphysical philosophy, nursery rhyme and science fiction affords the novel an element of originality.