Davenny, Ivan Andrew2023-05-312023-05-312023-05-30vt_gsexam:37425http://hdl.handle.net/10919/115260CONK is a collection that explores the absurdist irony located at the intersection between horror and humor. The events are predicated upon the characters' fundamental misunderstandings of the world around them, their doom arising from their inability to differentiate between the indecipherable and the incorrect ("Bird Kill"). Some are more reflexive, revolving around the difficulty of telling a story at all ("What a Story''), or exploring the dissolution of self that results from the act of artmaking (the eponymous "CONK"), or even indulging in the joy of said dissolution ("Celebration"). Other times, the pieces mix esoteric language and pop culture referents with the goal of defamiliarizing them ("Will That Be All?"). The resulting destabilization, this breakdown of heuristic methodology, creates situations that resist understanding and renders uncanny previously mundane images.ETDenIn Copyrightabsurdsatirefictionflash fictionuncannyesotericsuburbshorrorpopanimalsThesis