Southern Gothic Literature

1
Southern Gothic Literature

• Background Information on writing style and on
  Flannery OConnor

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Background

• Sub-genre of the Gothic style
• Popular in Europe in 1800s
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Unique to American literature
• relies on supernatural, ironic or unusual events
  to guide the plot
• uses these to explore social issues and reveal
  the cultural character of the American South.

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Background

• Takes classic Gothic archetypes, such as the
  monster or the heroic knight, and turns them into
  American Southerners
• a spiteful, reclusive spinster an uneducated
  drunk
• a quiet, wise lawyer
• Most notable feature is the grotesque
• a character whose negative qualities allow the
  author to highlight unpleasant aspects in
  Southern culture.
• Something in the town, the house, the farm is
  bizarre and often falling apart

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Defining Feature

• Cast of off-kilter characters
• Broken bodies, minds or souls
• Used to symbolize problems created by the
  established pattern
• Used to question established patterns morality
  and ethical justification
• The Innocent is a common character, who may or
  may not be broken, but who often acts as a
  redeemer for others. For example, Scout from To
  Kill a Mockingbird

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Other Specific Features of Southern Gothic
LIterature

• Freakishness
• Outsider
• Imprisonment
• Violence
• Sense of Place

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Freakishness

• In most southern gothic stories, there is an
  important character (not always the protagonist
  nor the antagonist) who is set apart from the
  world in a negative way by a disability or an
  odd, and often negative perception of the world.

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Outsider

• Southern novels are filled with characters who
  are set a part from the established cultural
  pattern, but who end up being heroes because
  their difference allows them to see new ways of
  doing things that ultimately help to bring people
  out of the dark.

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Imprisonment

• This is often both literal and figurative.
• Many southern gothic tales include an incident
  where a character is sent to jail or locked up.
• There are also Southern gothic characters that
  live in fate's prison.

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Violence

• Racial, social and class difference often create
  underlying tension in Southern gothic novels that
  threatens, and usually does, erupt in violent ways

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Sense of Place

• You cant read a Southern Gothic novel without
  understanding what a Southern town feels like
• old small towns
• Houses have front porches with rocking chairs
• Old downtown with stately but worn-down buildings

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Southern Gothic Novels/Books

• To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) About a young girl
  growing up in the racist Jim Crow south and her
  white father, who is a lawyer, defends a black
  man accused of raping a white woman
• In Cold Blood (Capote) Introduced a new genre of
  literature (non-fiction novel). The book tells
  the true story of a murdered family and the two
  men who committed the crime

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Southern Gothic Novels/Books

• The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner) Fiction novel
  told from 4 points of view about the
  deterioration of the Compson family, spanning
  over a 30 year period. Employs various narrative
  styles, including stream of consciousness.
• Wise Blood (OConnor) Story of a recently
  discharged World War II war veteran (Hazel Motes)
  who returns to his Tennessee home to find it
  abandoned. From there, he begins to wander around
  in search of something greater.

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Flannery OConnor

• Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in
  Savannah, Georgia.
• She studied writing at the University of Iowa and
  published The Geranium, her first short story,
  in 1946.
• She wrote novels, but was best known for her
  short story collections.
• She died of lupus in 1964 after fighting it for
  more than 10 years.
• More detailed Biography
• http//www.biography.com/people/flannery-oconnor-9
  426760

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Flannery OConnor Short Stories

• A Good Man is Hard to Find
• http//pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/surette/goodman.html
• Good Country People
• http//plaza.ufl.edu/lacy.hodges/GoodCountryPeople
  .pdf