The ends of my American memory: Fiction and an essay on gnostical autobiography

This dissertation includes ten pieces of fiction and a critical introduction. In the critical introduction, I use the framework of second-century Gnosticism as a starting point to explore two novels by the contemporary American author Ben Marcus (Notable American Women and The Father Costume) and two films by the Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin (Brand Upon the Brain! and My Winnipeg), ultimately arguing that ail four of these works can be classified as "Gnostical autobiographies." Being Gnostic in nature, they exhibit some of the core characteristics of Gnostic thought including: (1) a failed, fundamentally mistaken creation presided over by a demiurgic, tyrannical figure, (2) the idea that the individual possesses a divine, pneumatic spark, the seeds of a spiritual experience outside of the jurisdiction of the demiurge, and (3) the idea that the individual navigates this dualism (the demonic, fallen world versus the individual's ever-straining, spiritual, pneumatic element) through gnosis, a very particular kind of super- or extra-rational knowledge. Ultimately, the family dramas that are at the center of Brand Upon the Brain!, My Winnipeg, Notable American Women, and The Father Costume chronicle typical Gnostic narratives. Simultaneously, with their form and structure, the works of Guy Maddin and Ben Marcus are themselves exemplary acts of gnosis, rebellious acts of imaginative creativity against the inherited worlds, languages, and frameworks that have been handed-down by their demonic precursors.;The ten fictions comprising the creative portion of the dissertation can be conveniently divided into two camps: those stories dealing with history (especially American history) and those that deal with autobiography. All of these piece use historical facts and autobiographical information solely as a starting point, and they egregiously blur the fines between information that is historically or autobiographically true and information that is fabricated. Although they vary widely with both their content and form, all of them are centrally concerned with the processes of history and self-making as they occur within the realm of fiction writing, a characteristic that aligns them with the creative practices of Guy Maddin and Ben Marcus.