Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic explored criticism and many different traits of the South. The traits used in Southern Gothic are Moral Blindness, Disturbed Personalities, Macabre, Social Structure and there are a few others. The short stories we read provided examples of Southern Gothic writing. “A Good Man is Hard To Find”, “The Possibility of Evil”, and“A Rose For Emily” were stupendous examples of Southern Gothic. Throughout the stories the characters portrayed the traits that are used in Southern Gothic.
“A Good Man is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor is about an irrational grandmother and a disturbed misfit. One of the traits in this story was violence, The Misfit stated “She would have been a good woman, if it had been someone there to shoot her…” The Misfit tries to use violence on an innocent woman. Another trait in this story would be Good vs Evil , The Misfit doesnt believe hes good like the grandmother says, he won't let her convince them.
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In this story, it also dealt with disturbed personalities, she would do things that other people in the town wouldn’t for example, “Kept her notebook paper inside the desk and locked…” Social Structure was used to characterize Miss Strangeworth, she was known
“A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner was about a older disturbed woman who killed her fiance and it wasn’t discovered until she was dead. In this story there were many different traits. The first trait was dealing with disturbed personalities, the author stated “What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the night shift.” So the disturbed personality of Emily really showed when she kept Homer’s dead body many years after she killed him. The second trait used in the story was Macabre, Emily killed Homer in a strange horrific way. Emily stated “I want arsenic” right before Homer was
“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” written by Flannery O'Connor tells a story of a dysfunctional family on a roadtrip to Florida to illustrate the theme of self-awareness. The main protagonist in this story is the self-centered Grandmother whose lack of self-awareness is the reason why her family, including herself, are murdered by The Misfit (the Floridian convict). Throughout the story, the Grandmother considers herself as a good woman; however, it is through dialogue that reveals her true self. In reality, she is selfish, manipulative, inconsiderate, and dishonest. No matter how much she attempts to manipulate others into thinking she is full of integrity and a good example to follow, her actions contradict everything she wants people to believe.
In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner both main characters are portrayed as irrational and are isolated from reality. The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” murders an elderly man, as he is fearful of the man’s eye. Emily Grierson in “A Rose for Emily” lives secluded from society, until she marries a man, Homer. She ultimately kills Homer in his bed and leaves his body to decompose for many years. Both the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Emily Grierson in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” deny reality so vehemently that they isolate themselves from reality. Their isolation and denial of reality cause both to commit murder.
Emily was drove crazy by others expectations, and her loneliness. ““A Rose for Emily,” a story of love and obsession, love, and death, is undoubtedly the most famous one among Faulkner’s more than one hundred short stories. It tells of a tragedy of a screwy southern lady Emily Grierson who is driven from stem to stern by the worldly tradition and desires to possess her lover by poisoning him and keeping his corpse in her isolated house.” (Yang, A Road to Destruction and Self Destruction: The Same Fate of Emily and Elly, Proquest) When she was young her father chased away any would be suitors. He was convinced no one was good enough for her. Emily ended up unmarried. She had come to depend on her father. When he finally died, ...
For a seemingly sweet elderly lady, the readers would not have imagined her to be a bully or even a slight bit of rude for that matter. However, little did anyone know that Miss Strangeworth was hiding an unbearable secret. The cruel letters she writes to people in her town, the way she goes about them, and her love for writing them proves that she is very much a bully. Miss Strangeworth is one of the reasons why people should watch out for who they
...physical or intellectual ability. Therefore, stereotypical women were not given much personality in Gothic stories. The woman tends to be the motivation and the hope that the readers look for after the dread and despair of the gothic literature's depressing setting. Searching for the positive is a common response from readers after experiencing the haunted castles, landscape, or buildings. Again, if there was not any optimism in the story, readers feel awkward and reject the story. These settings display the Gothic feel for the characters that enter along with the reader. Along with the scary places, the monsters or villain, also take part in setting the Gothic feel to the literature. Whether it is a vampire, witch, woman in distress, or hero with super powers, the terror and optimism is a must within the story (“Themes & Construction: Frankenstein” 2003).
Elmore Leonard once said “I don’t judge in my books. I don’t have the antagonist get shot or the protagonist win. It’s just how it comes out. I’m just telling a story.” “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, written by Flannery O'Connor, is one of the most interesting stories that we have read in this class. The protagonist in this story is the grandmother and the antagonist is The Misfit. In any other short story, the protagonist and the antagonist would not have much in common, but that is not the case in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. The three major similarities between the grandmother and The Misfit is that they are both the oldest one in their groups, they are both hypocrites, and they both are missing important spiritual relationships.
William Faulkner is widely considered to be one of the great American authors of the twentieth century. Although his greatest works are identified with a particular region and time (Mississippi in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), the themes he explores are universal. He was also an extremely accomplished writer in a technical sense. Novels such as The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! feature bold experimentation with shifts in time and narrative. Several of his short stories are favorites of anthologists, including "A Rose for Emily." This strange story of love, obsession, and death is a favorite among both readers and critics. The narrator, speaking for the town of Jefferson in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, tells a series of stories about the town's reclusive spinster, Miss Emily Grierson. The stories build up to a gruesome revelation after Miss Emily's funeral. She apparently poisoned her lover, Homer Barron, and kept his corpse in an attic bedroom for over forty years. It is a common critical cliche to say that a story "exists on many levels." In the case of "A Rose for Emily", this is the truth. Critic Frank A. Littler, in an essay published in Notes on Mississippi Writers regarding the chronology of the story, writes that "A Rose for Emily" has been read variously as ". . .a Gothic horror tale, a study in abnormal psychology, an allegory of the relations between North and South, a meditation on the nature of time, and a tragedy with Emily as a sort of tragic heroine." These various interpretations serve as a good starting point for discussion of the story.
As a result, Miss Strangeworth’s character was analyzed by considering what she does in the book, what the narrator said about her, and how she interacted with other characters. Overall, we were able to realize that she is arrogant, outgoing, and also meddlesome. She displays each of these characteristics in more ways than one throughout the story.
Southern gothic is a type of literature that focuses on the harsh conflicts of violence and racism, which is observed in the perspective of black and white individuals. Some of the most familiar southern authors are William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Cormac McCarthy. One author in particular, Flannery O’Connor, is a remarkable author, who directly reflects upon southern grotesque within her two short stories, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Revelation.” These two short stories are very similar to each other, which is why I believe that O’Connor often writes with violent characters to expose real violence in the world while tying them in with a particular spiritual insight.
“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor explores the complexity of human nature. The unnamed grandmother is a perfect example of how contradictory a person’s beliefs and standards can be. She is indirectly manipulative, yet she holds herself to a higher, purer standard than the other characters. Not to mention, the grandmother is not as she first appear, and she is stuck on the views of the past and how they apply to her as a lady, whether the views are correct or not.
Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considering what she does. Miss Strangeworth is a selfish person. In the story it quotes,”Miss Strangeworth told the tourist with a pretty little dimple showing off her lip, she sometimes caught herself thinking the town belonged to her.” The other selfish is in the story as well. It quotes,”When tourist would ask about the roses, she wouldn’t give them away.” In other words her selfish side is she is mean to people or thinks everything belongs to her.
William Faulkner and Flannery O’ Conner both have mischievous and morbid characteristics. In Flannery O’Conner’s story, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, the main focus is that the grandma is old fashioned and uses this to her advantage in telling stories and trying not to get killed. In William Faulkner’s story, A Rose for Emily, it focuses on Emily who is also old fashioned but can’t get with the present time and keeps holding onto the past. Both have morbid endings because of their lack of letting go on past events, and use their archaic habits in different ways. In A Rose for Emily, Emily shows multiple signs of not liking change by denying her father’s death, not leaving the house and in A Good Man Is Hard to Find; the grandmother portrays the right way of being a lady, and her jokes associating with the plantation and the Negro child.
One great American Gothic story written by Poe is The Tell Tale Heart. What makes this story Gothic/creepy is how the narrator describes the old man 's eye. Also the fact that the narrator is constantly thinking of killing the old man because of his eyes. Then again he still wants the reader to believe that he is not insane for having these thoughts. And that he has a legitimate reason behind his own crazy reasoning. In the first paragraph of page 41 of the story he says “True! Nervous very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that i am mad?” then later he goes on to say “I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad?” The narrator is the perfect example of a character from a Gothic novel. He is extremely irrational and believe he has a right or even a duty to kill the old man and to put a stop to his
Southern Gothic Literature is a subgenre of Gothic fiction writing, which takes place in the American South. The Southern Gothic style is one of that employs the topics such as death, bizarre, violent, madness, and supernatural. These tools are used “to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South (Wikipedia).” The view of the South which is self-identified as the “national” or “American” view is basically a colonial Romance, with the rest of the nation identified with the forces of the light and the South with the forces of the darkness (Wacker 107).The authors of Southern Gothic typically use damaged characters to make their stories better, and to show deeper meanings of unpleasant Southern characteristics. These characters are diverse from society due to social, physical or mental disabilities.
In the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Emily, the protagonist, is shown as someone who’s life is falling apart and brought down by society. Emily in this story could be described as a victim to society and her father. Emily Grierson’s confinement, loss of her father and Homer, and constant criticism caused her, her insanity.