Award Date

12-2010

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in English

Department

English

First Committee Member

Megan Becker-Leckrone, Chair

Second Committee Member

Richard Wiley

Third Committee Member

Anne Stevens

Graduate Faculty Representative

Marta Meana

Number of Pages

306

Abstract

This creative dissertation is a novel set in a fictional private hospital on the southwestern coast of Finland. The main character, Sunny Taylor, is an American nurse whose loneliness and isolation give the novel its distant emotional atmosphere and outsider’s perspective on life in Finland (a densely forested country long perceived as linguistically, culturally, and geographically remote from the rest of Europe). Other main characters include a reserved, chronically ill Finnish woman born before independence from Russia and educated as an architect; an unpleasant expatriate Danish woman who once gave ballroom dance lessons in Finnish cafés; an American obstetrician who comes to Finland with his young family; and a group of American “timber wives” attached to a joint Finnish-American timber venture. The American obstetrician brings maternity cases to Suvanto, and the predominantly childless American patients react with anguish and anger. Tensions escalate within the nearly snowbound hospital, resulting in the violent death of the obstetrician and the disappearance of his nurse.

Keywords

Fiction; Finland; Hospitals; Nurses

Disciplines

American Literature | Literature in English, North America | Modern Literature

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Comments

Signatures have been redacted for privacy and security measures.

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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