Southern Gothic Literature

1. Southern Gothic Literature

2. Gothic Literature • 18th-19th century • Combines elements of both horror and romance • Features include melodrama and parody • Critique of moral blindness of medieval era • Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman?

4. Visual Contrast • Michelangelo’s Renaissance rendering vs. crucifixion motif emphasizing the physical suffering of Christ Michelangelo Buonarroti 1475-1564 Roettgen Pieta circa early 14th century

5. Gothic Settings • Gothic Buildings • Old, unfamiliar, mysterious and menacing • “Dark Ages” architecture • Designed to terrify or overwhelm the reader • Natural Settings • Forests and mountain to involve a sense of danger • Designed to remove the reader from the ordinary, everyday world of the normal and familiar Action in the Gothic novel tends to take place at night, or at least in a claustrophobic, sunless environment.

6. Some Gothic Motifs • Haunted castle • Ascent (up a mountain or high staircase) • Descent (into a dungeon, cave, underground chambers or labyrinth) or falling off a precipice • Secret passage • Hidden doors • The pursued maiden and the threat of rape or abduction • Physical decay, skulls, cemeteries, and other images of death • Ghosts • revenge; family curse • Blood and gore • Torture • The Doppelganger (evil twin or double) • Demonic possession • Masking/shape-changing • Black magic • Madness/psychosis • Incest and other broken sexual taboos

7. Characters • The protagonist deems himself/herself the most tortured soul in the world as the misfortunes occur. • There are characteristic passages in the stories in which the character goes into a self pitying monologue of some sort. • The characters in gothic stories are often tormented by horrendous actions for which they are sometimes responsible.

8. Southern Gothic Literature Characteristics • Most notable Southern Gothic literature written in 20th century • Grotesque characters • Issues of supernatural and uncanny ideas that border on lunacy • Bizarre endings • Themes of conflict intrinsic to the South • Characters with stereotypic personalities (using supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to reveal the inequities of Southern society)

9. Southern Gothic Literature: Distinguishing Features • The outsider • Imprisonment (both literal and figurative) • Violence • Sense of place • Family

10. Grotesque Characteristics • One whose psyche is distorted because he or she develops an obsession or latches on to only one idea • The characters’ bodies may or may not be deformed to reflect these psychic obsessions (may be physical, mental, or metaphorical) • Induces both empathy and disgust