Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 4-18-2022
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
English
First Advisor
Tom Franklin
Second Advisor
Beth Ann Fennelly
Third Advisor
Caroline Wigginton
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
Black-Eyed tells the story of Rowan Mae Baker, a ten-year-old girl dealing with too-big-for-a-ten-year-old problems. In the past year, Rowan moved from Jackson to Winona after the unexpected arrest and sudden death of her father. Then, almost a year later, Rowan is sexually assaulted by an older boy from her school. Rowan understands neither of these things. Throughout Black-Eyed, Rowan spends twelve hours running away from home while trying to figure out how to talk to her mom about the assault. Alone for the first time, she begins to observe and question the world around her, to process her grief and pain, and to redefine what it means to be brave for herself.
This novella was written to engage with its reader, to make them question the kind of Mississippi a ten-year-old girl may have to grow up in today, and to display how hard it is to face fears when you have no words to describe them. But Rowan’s story is not only her fear. As the out-of-order narrative unfolds, the reader is asked to come inside Rowan’s mind, to see the world through her eyes, and how she copes with it. Black-Eyed asks the reader to have a conversation that Rowan does not know how to have and to care about many stories like Rowan’s that go unspoken every day.
Recommended Citation
Sipe, Abigail, "Black-Eyed" (2022). Honors Theses. 2532.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2532
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