The (Southern) Gothic

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The (Southern) Gothic
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Literary Gothicism isnt quite the same as the
pop culture stereotype
Though there are some similiarities . . .
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Generally, Gothicism is a type of imitation
medievalism

• starts with Horace Walpoles house, Strawberry
  Hill, which he refurbished with towers, turrets,
  battlements, arched doors, windows, and ornaments
  of every description, creating a kind of spurious
  medieval architecture that survives today mainly
  in churches, military academies . . . and
  university buildings.

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Strawberry Hill
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Walpole is also a writer,

• and his novel The Castle of Otranto elaborates on
  his gothic concerns. It featured
• a haunted castle,
• An evil male villain
• mysterious deaths,
• supernatural happenings,
• a moaning ancestral portrait,
• a damsel in distress,
• And, as the Oxford Companion to English
  Literature puts it, "violent emotions of terror,
  anguish, and love."

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• the literary Gothic emerges from the Romantic
  era, and shares many of the same tropes and
  themes, such as . . .
• the omnipresence of death and decay
• The importance of terror as revelatory of truth
• Exploration of human psychology
• Supernatural elements, or suggestions of same.
• Reaction against modernity, often protagonist
  sees the light of supernatural after denying it.

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Architecture is usually significant

• The centrality of architecture
• as model of self/psyche
• as places of confinement
• as ancient power structures (castles etc.)

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• Literary critic Christoph Grunenberg on the
  centrality of the house in Gothic literature
• "The house functions as a matrix for memory and
  the exploration of its hidden rooms, forbidden
  spaces, locked doors, closely, and cupboards (a
  standard theme in Gothic fiction as in film noir)
  summons to consciousness displaced and undigested
  experiences and dreams. ("Unsolved Mysteries
  Gothic Tales from Frankenstein to the Hair-eating
  Doll 211)

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• the house often contains a madwoman in either
  the basement or the attic . . . think The Yellow
  Wallpaper or The Fall of the House of Usher by
  Poe.
• Thus the secrets being explored are often
  connected to gender/sexuality.

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Yet Gothic fiction is really family fiction in
the end . . .

• it frequently has to do with family secrets
• family histories
• memories either forgotten or suppressed
• deviant sexuality, incest

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So why Southern Gothic?

• since Gothic is embedded in yearning for an
  imagined medieval past, its revival in the
  American South was due to a yearning for a
  re-imagined past, where their peculiar
  institution (i.e. slavery) was just one facet of
  a glorious culture that deserves to be mourned.
  (think A Rose for Emily, also an example of the
  form.)

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• A lurid or macabre writing style native to the
  American South. Since the middle of the 20th
  century, Southern writers have interpreted and
  illuminated the history and culture of the region
  through the conventions of the Gothic narrative
  (or Gothic novel), which at its best provides
  insight into the horrors institutionalized in
  societies and social conventions. (Source NYPL,
  678).

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• The Grotesque
• includes situations, places, or stock characters
  that often possess some truly awful qualities--
  typically racial bigotry and egotistical
  self-righteousness-- but enough good traits that
  they are nevertheless interesting.
• Southern Gothic authors commonly use deeply
  flawed, grotesque characters for greater
  narrative range and more opportunities to
  highlight unpleasant aspects of Southern culture,
  without being too literal or appearing to be
  overly moralistic.

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• thus the form allows Southern writers to examine
  social institutions in a figurative way horrors
  that are in fact embedded in the historical
  past re-emerge in supernatural or shocking ways
  that actually serve to strengthen their effect.
• Anne Rice, John Behrendt, William Faulkner,
  Cormac McCarthy, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers
  et al.

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Flannery OConnor and the Southern Gothic

• the genre, with all its attendant focus on
  violence, the grotesque, and the family, is
  ideally suited to OConnor, whose mission is to
  shock her audience into an understanding of
  mortality and Christian salvation.
• more complex than simple horror a la Stephen
  King SG writing is more difficult to read and
  understand, and its effects more complicated.

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Flannery OConnor and the Southern Gothic

• the genre, with all its attendant focus on
  violence, the grotesque, and the family, is
  ideally suited to OConnor, whose mission is to
  shock her audience into an understanding of
  mortality and Christian salvation.
• more complex than simple horror a la Stephen
  King SG writing is more difficult to read and
  understand, and its effects more complicated.

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Heres OConnor on the subject of her writing . .
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• "Whenever Im asked why Southern writers
  particularly have a penchant for writing about
  freaks, I say it is because we are still able to
  recognize one."

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• "Anything that comes out of the South is going to
  be called grotesque by the northern reader,
  unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going
  to be called realistic."

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• "All my stories are about the action of grace on
  a character who is not very willing to support
  it, but most people think of these stories as
  hard, hopeless and brutal."

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• When you can assume that your audience holds the
  same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and
  use more normal ways of talking to it when you
  have to assume that it does not, then you have to
  make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard
  of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind
  you draw large and startling figures."