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Writing serves as a powerful psychological tool that helps individuals process complex emotions and experiences. When faced with trauma or moral conflict, putting thoughts into words forces the mind to organize and confront feelings that might otherwise remain chaotic or overwhelming. Because emotional experiences are often nonlinear, the resulting narratives may be incomplete or inconsistent.
This concept is reflected in literature when an author employs an unreliable narrator. These narrators, like real people, may leave out or reshape parts of a story to make sense of difficult events or justify morally gray situations. Because this form of writing mirrors innate human cognitive functioning, readers connect deeply with these more complex narratives.
My project explores how narrative theory and cognitive psychology intersect to explain the emotional and psychological connections between readers and fiction. The goal was not only to demonstrate that fiction does more than entertain, but also to show how stories help us understand human thought, empathy, and the complexities of our own lives and those of others.
This project involved extensive research on narrative theory and cognitive processing. Fueled by my own interest in unreliable narratives and their connection to the cognitive science behind narrative processing, I found that readers engage the same psychological mechanisms they use in real-life interactions. This project revealed the depth of cognitive and emotional work that reading narratives requires, and how this process can help us better understand ourselves and others on a deeper level.

In 1852 Karl Marx said “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as a farce.” George Santayana said in his 1905 book, The Life of Reason, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill is widely attributed to saying that “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” These phrases and many others like it have often been repeated in various history classes throughout my educational career. The purpose of this project is to look into the startling similarities between current day politics and World War II. While it is certain that events have evolved in our current era due to technological advancements, there are many similarities in the political tensions we are experiencing today. This project is not meant to target any one individual or government. It’s not about picking sides. It is a critique of the construct of war as a whole. I will be referring to war novels like Tim O’Brein’s The Things They Carried and Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken while writing my story. This project will take a creative fiction approach, depicting a college senior, Ryan, in his spring semester who is tasked with interviewing war veterans about their experiences while fighting. He meets a World War II veteran who unabashedly tells him the horrors of war, and mentions his worry for Ryan’s generation as they face an uncertain world where war seems to be just around the corner.

The fantasy genre arose in response to societal issues, critiquing them through fictional worlds, allegorical characters, and plot heavy resolutions. In recent times, fantasy has shifted its focus to the individual. Two books that illustrate this shift are Six of Crows by Leigh Barudo and The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. In both novels, the hero must overcome a personal trauma that hinders them as much as the external conflict, and both stories find conclusion not primarily with the resolution of the plot, but with the main character coming to a sense of self that originates from within. While both of these books prioritize the reader`s relationship with the main character rather than the plot, my work attempts to make an even more dramatic shift from the traditional plot heavy focus of fantasy to the individual by emphasizing issues of self-formation as the primary conflict of the novel. In the last novel in my series Fifth Book, the heroine Elara grapples with the reality of her shattered sense of self through facing the villain who created her, which reveals her need for an authentic, independent identity. Thus, the conclusion of the series is less about defeating the villain and more about Elara`s struggle to form a sense of self that can grow, heal and thrive. Through prioritizing issues of self-development, I allow readers to connect with the work in a deeper way and experience fantasy as a path for understanding their emotions instead of simply escaping from them.

This hybrid project combines research and creativity, aiming to exhibit human expression and raise awareness of the dangers of using Generative AI within the fine arts, for AI cannot see the beauty of a sunset or the majestic flutter of a butterfly. Art is the very essence that defines humans from the world around us, giving us the ability to paint our emotions and experiences or write about the magnificent landscape for those unable to view it. Modern-day usage of GenAI threatens to invade expressionism and warp the complexity of experience by simply writing a prompt requesting soulless full-scale works, spewing mimicry of stolen pieces by authors or artists from millennia before.
By utilizing research both in support and against GenAI interference, along with a collection of heartfelt short stories, I hope to inspire others to take a stance against the AI invasion of art. I will consider the helpful tool that AI can be while defending the need for human expression behind art, as well as use academic and literary resources to strengthen the importance of creative value. I argue that the cold, empty words of an algorithm do not hold a candle to the feeling of being alive and seeing beauty. With enough voices and passion to preserve artwork and literature, there will be no room for AI to worm its way into the uniquely human ability to create.

Although mental health struggles are more widely recognized in modern society, their initial stigmatization made writing and literature an escapist outlet, providing empowerment and freedom to isolated and marginalized individuals. Through point of view and visualization, art captures inner worlds, creating empathy and understanding for diverse perspectives. By analyzing works such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I examine how storytelling can turn private struggles into shared meaning and act as a catalyst for healing and connection. My analysis highlights how emotional resonance and recognition create a sense of intimacy within literature, a unique artistic impact that first unravels, then makes vulnerable, and ultimately validates hidden selves. Simultaneously, I address how societal restrictions can impose limitations on narrative writing as a form of mental health support. Extending this inquiry, I connect this analysis to my own song lyrics, demonstrating how creative expression can serve as both a mirror and a window, creating awareness while reflecting individual feelings and perspectives. Ultimately, this work aims to illustrate the enduring role of storytelling in reducing stigma and building empathy, compassion, and dialogue across generations of readers and writers.

Although primary sources offer invaluable insight into the past and are among the most reliable ways to gain an understanding of history, they seldom include other perspectives in a single source. Also problematic is the “glorification” of certain historical events, particularly wars. These portrayals can distort how history is depicted, particularly in pop culture, as is evident in several noteworthy examples of historical fiction, some of which claim to be “historically accurate.” Films like The Patriot (1995), Napoleon (2023), as well as television programs like Vikings (2013–2021), and video games such as Battlefield 1 (2016), portray history in a way that only shows the perspective of one party involved in pivotal historical events and/or Hollywoodize the events they portray. Films like Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) have tried to resolve this issue, but they are among the few mainstream examples. Through the Lens of Our Forebears: Depicting History in Pop Culture, a work of fiction itself, aims to interrogate the notion that history must be exaggerated to serve as “good entertainment,” as well as the lack of diverse perspectives in historical media. By relying on primary and secondary sources from a broad range of perspectives and attempting to capture history accurately down to the minutest detail, this piece portrays life in 1928 California and that in the trenches of the Western Front of the First World War in a way that is hopefully as close to objective as possible.