Andy Warhol’s vividly coloured Marilyn represents pop art, whereas Grant Wood’s American Gothic illustrates regionalism by portraying a realistic scene of rural America. The colour scheme of American Gothic is grayish and blunder compared to the neon colours of Marilyn. Although, both paintings are portraits, they vastly differ in their choice of subject; Marylin is a portrait of the iconic celebrity, while American Gothic portrays an ordinary farmer holding a pitchfork, as symbol of hard labour, posing with his daughter or young wife. Where Marilyn depicts four illustrations of the face of the famous actress with solid colour background, in American Gothic the farmer family stands in front of a their home, a gothic style house.
Flannery O’Connor, known for her original Southern Gothic style of prose has been titled “the master of the short story” (O’Connor). Her application of symbolism and the themes of Southern religion deem her as one of the most influential writers in American history. Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 and raised in the South, O’Connor was socialized as a member of the Catholic Church which proves evident throughout her writings. She studied journalism at the University of Iowa, but quickly migrated back to the South where she wrote most of her works: two novels, 32 short stories, and a number of commentaries and reviews. When diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, the same illness that killed her father when she was young, she returned to her family’s farm in Midgeville, Georgia where she later passed away in 1962 at the young age of 39. Her works have received multiple awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 1972. One Reason her books translate globally to people of a Christian faith is because although different denominations exist within Christianity, many of the beliefs and traditions transpire from Catholicism into Lutheranism, Methodism, and other churches possessing Catholic roots. In each short story, she carries a message for the reader, messages of life, death, and the transition between. The two stories examined within this research paper are “Good Country People,” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” The grandmother, her son, Bailey, and his young family leave for a family vacation to Florida. As the grandmother convinces the family to take a detour along what she believes to be a familiar route, eventually causing them to meet the Misfit and accomplices. In “Good Co...
Flannery O’Connor emerged as a crucial and contemporary innovator of southern gothic literature. Southern gothic literature is defined as a subgenre of gothic fiction, which originated in the United States during the 20th century. The southern gothic genre employs similar literary elements, which its “parent” genre had established. These elements include the employment of macabre, psychological and isolationist dimensions; except now in southern gothic, these elements were used to examine the values of the American South. Mary Shelley and Flannery O’Connor both emerged as two prestigious figures of Gothicism through their combination of psychological and isolationist aspects, in order to create memorable works in the Gothic tradition. The influence of Shelley on O’Connor’s work is clearly evident when examining the reoccurring gothic theme of isolationism, found in both Frankenstein and Wise Blood.
American Icons is an oil-based painting done by Robin Murray in 2015. This piece is considered “high art,” but this does not mean good or bad art. High art and low art are just viewed in different ways. American Icons is a traditional painting done on a large canvas. According to John A Fisher, “…certain traditional forms, those associated with the modern system, are
They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. If that is true, I would have to say that many people praise American Gothic every day. It is parodied in the political cartoons of the newspapers around the country and on television as well. Almost anyone could recognize the solemn couple from having been printed on everything from coffee mugs to mousepads. Grant Wood’s classic tale of a farming family in rural Iowa has truly
Ringe, Donald A. American Gothic: Imagination and Reason in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. Lexington KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1982.
Elements of Southern Gothic Literature Literature comes in all types of styles and one type is Southern Gothic. But what makes a story develop into this type of Southern Gothic style? There are many characteristics that are apparent in literature, so what conditions are distinct that would give them the term Southern Gothic literature? What kind of elements do we call for when trying to find this type of literature? Southern Gothic is a literature that has a style all its own.
Gothic elements are used to show suspense, symbolism, and drama, while also setting dark and twisted tones about the story and its characters. In the passage "The Fall of the House of Usher" the author uses Gothic elements to entice the reader with details of ominous character persona and setting.
Rosemary's baby employs a number of recognisably gothic conventions, but is ultimately a novel that is unique to the late twentieth century. Investigate the ways in which Ira Levin incorporates a blend of techniques to create a modernised style of horror.
In Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” he portrays America’s dark age and the values its citizens evoke. During the Great, Depression Americans went back to their roots and focused on on the importance of home, work, and church to get through the tough time for the nation. Grant Wood illustrates this with details. The man portrays work, his faded overalls and strong hands grasping the pitchfork solidify his role. Mr. Wood purposely painted the red barn on his right side to continue to cement this idea. His overalls echo the design of the pitchfork directly connecting him to farm work. The woman is the home. She cares both for the house and the man. Being the caretaker is not easy, her stray hair fallen from her hard work. She does work hard but
Each author sets a gothic tone first and foremost by the techniques used to describe setting and characters. Irving and Hawthorne set their stories in ghostly mysterious forests. Each author uses phenomenal to truly connect the reader with the stories. Hawthorne’s use of similes to tie in what the forest was like gives a sense of letting the readers feel like they are there with young goodman Brown, “ . . . surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems
Camille, Michael. Gothic Art: Glorious Visions. Upper Saddle River (NJ): Prentice Hall, 1996. 12. Print.
Southern Gothic literature is widely known as a genre focused on grotesque themes. Therefore, gothic writing involves various supernatural elements along with damaged or delusional characters. Dark humor stories play the role of the mirror for numerous issues in society. Despite mentally unstable, complex, and also with questioned morality characters, dark and ironic stories effectively display the problematic theme of the whole society. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find ” is one of the gothic writings which takes the breath, while reading it.
American writers have expressed their political and social views through their writing by attempting to establish a voice separate from Britain’s. Their fear of individual and national failure and their thirst for power consumes them and is evident in their writing. Washington Irving and Herman Melville involve the occupation of lawyers and Justices to bring in a patriotic element to influence residents of the young country as a way to share their concerns and inspire ambition. Their usage of metaphors and metonymy subtly convey a message of hope to white residents while, deflating the optimism of the soon to be freed slaves. This essay will prove that a critical reading of Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” and Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” utilizes representations and depictions of the gothic, the portrayal of black characters and their isolation, and blackness suggests the preoccupations of the American writer.
Kathy Prendergast, further contends, that it is this convergence of the Gothic art style and Romantic genre which was quintessential of the nineteenth century era. Both collided to spotlight terror, valuelessness emotion and vulnerability. Both collided to perpetrate a sense of wonderment in the reader/viewer, a sense of helplessness in the face of some superior force. The Gothic architecture with its peculiarity, mystery and imperilment; the Gothic architecture with its a...
3 p.. Ebook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Gothic. Image and Ideology in Modern/Postmodern Discourse - Google Books." Google Books.