Tales from the arcade

Date of Publication

2023

Document Type

Bachelor's Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Literature major in Creative Writing

Subject Categories

Creative Writing

College

College of Liberal Arts

Department/Unit

Literature, Department of

Thesis Advisor

Ana Margarita R. Nuñez

Defense Panel Chair

Antonette Talaue-Arogo

Defense Panel Member

Mark Adrian C. Ho
Shirley O. Lua

Abstract (English)

Tales from the Arcade is a collection of three fantasy novellas. All are set in the Arcade, a fictional university as large as a city, where students can learn a variety of unusual subjects such as godcraft and rain dancing. The setting’s phantasmagorical and everything-goes nature is a direct representation of the project’s themes: human agency and man’s search for meaning. With these themes in mind, as well as the use of a fantasy setting to deepen its discussion of the human experience, the novel follows in the tradition of works such as the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake, “The Kite of Stars” by Dean Francis Alfar, and “The Target” by Eliza Victoria to name a few.

The first novella, “Godcraft”, tells the story of Iris, a genius godcraft major, as she is partnered up with Spiderweb, a monk accepted into the program despite his atheism, for their class project of crafting a god for the other. Standing at 48,567 words, the story is written in the third-person point of view, and follows the perspectives of both characters. It is written in a descriptive style meant to mirror the characters’ heightened spirituality, the “bigness” of their eyes, which marks their ability to see things beyond their physical form and perceive the divine.

The second novella, “‘Feather-toes’, or Part One of Year One of Dreams, Knives, and Rat Chariots: The Martian's Account of His Years in the Arcade (Author’s Preface Included)”, or “Feather-toes” for short, tells the story of Inkblot, a journalism major consumed by the Arcade’s criminal underbelly. Standing at 22,572 words, it is presented as the first chapter of the protagonist’s long journal. It makes heavy use of the unreliable narrator trope, the hints of which could be detected in the protagonist’s narcissistic voice, and the slight incongruencies in his storytelling and memory.

The third novella, “rain dancer”, tells the story of an unnamed rain dancing major, as he is tasked to bring an end to the drought plaguing the Arcade’s Garden district. Standing at 17,195 words, the novella is told from the second-person point of view, as well as in the present tense, a decision made to highlight its absurdist theme: the endlessness of the struggle for meaning.

While all three stories tackle the same themes of man’s search for meaning and human agency, they all have different ways of tackling these topics. “Godcraft” deals with these themes through the lens of religion—how meaning is found through a spiritual life, and how such a life could be successfully lived with and without a god. “Feather-toes”, on the other hand, tackles how meaning and agency can be constructed through a grand self-narrative. “rain dancer” takes a more absurdist route, discussing how one can find meaning in futility. Together, these stories state how there is no one answer to the question of life’s meaning, and through recurring motifs and other narrative devices, the stories are meant to be read as being in conversation with each other.

Abstract Format

html

Abstract (Filipino)

"-"

Abstract Format

html

Language

English

Format

Electronic

Keywords

Fantasy fiction, Philippine (English)

Upload Full Text

wf_yes

Embargo Period

12-10-2023

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS