Abstract

Melody of Wrath is a young adult fairy tale retelling of the Pied Piper legend centered on fifteen-year-old antihero Magnus. Driven by grief and rage after the massacre of his people, Magnus wields music as dangerous magic to summon a plague of rats and exact revenge on a corrupt city. The novel follows his morally complex journey from vengeance through compromise to a final test inside a transformative mountain, where he confronts the cost of retribution and the uncertain possibility of redemption. Drawing on folktale scholarship, archetypal theory, and literary antiheroes such as Hamlet and Edmond Dantès, this project uses symbols of rats, music, and the mountain to explore justice, forgiveness, hybrid identity, and moral ambiguity. By centering an antihero’s flawed arc, the novel offers young adult readers a safe space to examine intense emotions and difficult choices while preserving the wonder and redemptive hope of the fairy tale tradition.

Degree

MFA

College and Department

Humanities; English

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/