Date of Award

12-15-2014

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

English Language and Literatures

First Advisor

James Barilla

Abstract

As a child, Emilie often imagined what her future home would look like. As she wandered through flea markets with her mother, she would envision the pieces she found there in a home of her own, building spacious libraries, comfortable bedrooms, and well-appointed kitchens in her imagination with the same passion that other children built models out of Legos. Although the houses always changed, there was an underlying certainty that she would eventually have one house—a certainty that could not be realized once she got married, and committed to living wherever the Army stationed her husband. In this memoir, Emilie pieces together the first three years of her marriage, what it means to be married yet still fiercely independent, and the ways in which home can be created when the home you know is all too far away. By exploring the objects that she would choose to keep no matter where they move, Emilie also reveals what it means to live at the beck and call of the Army, and the ways in which building a home mirrors the work it takes to build a life for oneself.

Rights

© 2014, Emilie L. Duck

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