Woman of the House

Woman of the House, a Creative Writing fiction thesis, is narrated by a sensitive sixteen-year-old young girl, Caryn Talistein, whose parents have divorced because her mother has fallen in love with a female art student, surprising everyone in the family with her shift in sexual orientation. Meanwhile, her father has become engaged to a woman nearly Caryn's age and is eager to have more children. These sudden changes in Caryn's family makeup, especially the influx of new female role models, have complicated her struggle to define her own identity. The divorce has also caused Caryn to feel that her parents' quests for self-fulfillment are more important to them than her well-being. Thus, she exhibits increasing hostility towards the parents' new partners. The novel centers around Caryn's struggle to negotiate her relationships with her new "family members," as well as her radically transformed parents and traumatized younger brother.