1. in American Literature
Southern Gothic
in American Literature

2. On the back of the notes sheet..
Write down at least ten things that come to mind when you think of the word “Southern”

3. 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.

4. Details Writers Use
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
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

5. Details Writers Use Cont.
Lonely plantations
Aging Southern belles
Dusty downtowns
Spanish moss and Southern charm

6. Other Specific Characteristics of Southern Gothic
Freakishness
Outsider
Imprisonment
Violence
Sense of Place

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

8. 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.”

9. 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.

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

11. 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

12. Themes
Good vs. Evil
Loss of innocence
Social inequality

13. Characters Cast of off-kilter characters
Women are powered by their desires on one hand, their obligations on the other
Live on the outside of society
Long to find a connection in this world
Often strangers in strange places

14. Ambrose Bierce1842-1914? “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Recurring theme: dark vision of life centering on war and the cruel joke it plays on humanity.
Fought for the Union during the Civil War.
Went to Mexico to cover, or join, its revolution in 1913 and was never heard from again.

15. Flannery O’Connor 1925-1964 Born in Savannah, Georgia
Suffered from and died of Lupus
Devout Roman Catholic
Christian belief pervades all her writing and she uses violence to make a point.
Her point: God is here and the devil is too.

16. Terms to Know
She is a writer of satire: a type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about change.
She is a master of the idea that there is truth in the grotesque (odd or unnatural in shape, appearance, or character; fantastically ugly or absurd; bizarre).

17. Southern Gothic Movie Trailers

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