Find the folder with your name on it and sit down with your partner. DO NOT OPEN YOUR FOLDER!

Southern Gothic in American Literature

Goals Analyze images to identify key characteristics of the Southern Gothic Fiction genre Review or learn Key terms: imagery, genre, tone, mood, archetype Explore regional cultural influences on artistic and literary movements Anticipate themes, images and other characteristics of TKAM

Imagery in Art and Literature visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work that can function as a way to better imagine the world of the image or piece of literature. Imagery draws on the five senses, namely the details of taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound.

Mood In literature, mood is a literary element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions. Usually, mood is referred to as the atmosphere of a literary piece, as it creates an emotional situation that surrounds the readersatmosphere

Theme Life lesson, meaning, moral, or message about life or human nature that is communicated by a literary work. –a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work that may be stated directly or indirectly. In other words… Theme is what the story teaches readers.

Activity Directions: Step 1 Inside each folder are three items. 1.Image 2.Gothic Image Analysis Sheet 3.A note-taking guide With your assigned partner, take 5 minutes to analyze the image and answer the corresponding questions on the Gothic Analysis Sheet. When finished, wait quietly for your classmates to finish.

Activity Directions: Step 2 Find your assigned small group. Share your image and analysis with new members. Give feedback on new team member’s image. Do you see/feel the same things they did when you look at the image?

What is Gothic? Origin: German “goths”

During the renaissance the term was used as a synonym to describe Northern European art as “barbaric” Abbey Church of St Denis, France

Compare the Architecture

Gothic architecture would become associated with the melancholy and the grotesque.

How does this apply to literature? ’s Writers published novels and poems which celebrated the gloomy atmosphere of medieval ruins and churchyards Europe Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera (1909) Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) American Literature Many works by Edgar Allen Poe “The Raven”( ) Nathanial Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter (

Themes Motifs, and Characteristics Classic Gothic stories included themes of decay, death, and madness Many of the stories took place in Medieval settings employing the use of Castles, misty/murky, dark environments. Other characteristics include the appearance of ghosts, mysterious circumstances, and secrets

How do the following pictures represent Gothic style?

What is Southern Gothic Literature? Is a Sub-genre of the Gothic style and unique to American literature relies on supernatural, ironic or unusual events to guide the plot –to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South.

Background Takes classic Gothic archetypes, such as the monster or the heroic knight, and turns them into American Southerners Who might fit those roles in TKAM? 1.Take two minutes to talk with your partner about which characters in TKAM fit those roles. 2.Speculate: What are some other ways TKAM fits Gothic characteristics?

Archetype a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature.

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

Defining Features 1.Cast of off-kilter characters 2.Brokenness: bodies, minds or souls Used to question morality and ethical justification of established social patterns 3.Innocence: the “Innocent” is a common character, who may or may not be “broken,” but who often acts as a redeemer for others

Other Specific Features of Southern Gothic 4. Freakishness 5. Outsider 6. Imprisonment 7. Violence 8. Sense of Place

Freakishness In most southern gothic stories, there is an important character who is set apart from the world in a negative way by a disability or an odd, and often negative way of seeing the world.

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.”

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. –Mental imprisonment –There are also Southern gothic characters that live in fate's prison.

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

Sense of Place You can’t 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

Goals Analyze images to identify key characteristics of the Southern Gothic Fiction genre Review or learn Key terms: imagery, genre, tone, mood, archetype Explore regional cultural influences on artistic and literary movements Anticipate themes, images and other characteristics of TKAM

Exit Ticket Now that we have discussed southern gothic literature… –use your knowledge and notes to –answer the two questions on your exit ticket. –Turn in your exit ticket when you are finished and begin your homework: TKAM CH 13-14

What is it? Geographically limited Utilized the decaying South –Analogy between medieval settings and southern settings –Came about after the Civil War –Struggle between Old and New South Tragedy and repressed behaviors come to the forefront Explore the psychology of human existence

Characteristics Exploration of subconscious through dreams Good versus evil in characters Setting and atmosphere evoke vivid emotional response –Setting symbolically symbols the end of an era Personal and community experience Emphasis of history

Explores Relationships between races and genders –Treatment of blacks and women –Love that is not returned The corruption and decay of the south –Dislocation and decadence of the South Distorted religious views Clash between those with power and those without Isolation of individual

Explores Humans’ powerlessness in an indifferent universe Moral decay of community Burden of history Horrors of human’s treatment of each other

Southern Gothic Writers William Faulkner “A Rose for Emily” and As I Lay Dying Flannery O’Connor “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Truman Capote

In the 20 th century, the idea of Gothic literature developed with the age. William Faulkner turned the dark castle settings into decaying southern plantations and the ghosts became the death of honor and nobility of tradition and gentility. Flannery O’Connor saw evil in modernism. She depicted places and people who had lost morals, values, and religion.

The End

Credits “Southern Gothic” painting To Kill a Mockingbird Pictures Genre information – – –