ROOMS BY THE SEA: A DISSERTATION IN CREATIVE WRITING. (ORIGINAL NOVEL) (HISTORY; FICTION; CHIASMUS)

Scope and Method of Study. The purpose of the introduction is to examine the relationship of history and fiction, with special emphasis on the concept of chiasmus. The parameters for blending history with fiction can be established on a continuum from "pure" history (objective) through "pure" fiction (subjective). The uses of memory, perception, and insight to writers such as Thucydides, Aristotle, and Plutarch are compared to modern writers such as Proust, James, and Tuchman. The use of history in fictional forms of Restoration drama and roman a clef is examined while the contemporary focus of fiction as history, history as fiction is noted. A novel of parallel structure (history as fiction, fiction as history) follows, focusing on the conflicts of 1965.;Findings and Conclusions. The novel, Rooms By the Sea, deals with the era of the mid-1960s, a period of upheaval in established institutions. The questioning of military and religious organizations is embodied in characters who must interact with history and each other: Lt. Commander Eliot Hopkins, captain of a warship in a war that wasn't a war; Father Peter Trevalino, Catholic Navy chaplain; and, Connie Hopkins, wife of Eliot. The year 1965 is the chiasmus in which a war of words became words of war, and when the characters both lost touch and were touched by loss. Ultimately, for Connie Hopkins, the rooms by the sea become empty rooms.