Mrs. Hasty
Honors English
November 27 2013
Southern Gothic Romanticism
Southern Gothic Romanticism is literature with the traits of Gothic literature. Some specific traits are freakishness, imprisonment, violence, and a sense of place. Unusual events usually the plot and it focuses on American South.
Some of the Gothic elements from "A Rose For Emily" are death, descriptions of her and her crumbling house, the ending, and lost love. Emily was a happy person until her father dies (love being lost). Her description and the house gives off a creepy and menacing feel. And finally, the ending gives off the element of death quite well. You see the southern parts of the story with Tobe, Emily's slave, because slaves were really only seen in the south back then.
Also, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" has more of a Gothic humor to it. Both characters want something. Mr. Shiflet wants the old woman's car, and the old women wants her daughter who cannot speak gone. It gives off the sense of imprisonment when Mr. Shiflet leaves his new wife at a rest stop with no ways to get home of communicate.
These two stories relate to the Gothic Romanticism by having dark Gothic elements. Imprisonment and dark endings are seen in both stories, which is also in Gothic Romanticism.
In "A Rose For Emliy", Emily's crime doesn't get discovered until the end because she kept herself isolated from any people. She first could have been discovered when the neighbors started to smell the awful scent coming from her house. Then when she was buying man clothes when she wasn't even married made them awfully suspicious of a man being in the house, though little did they know in what conditions this man was. She could be seen as someone going mad or insane because the lost of a loved one, or in this case, her father. These all contribute to the story by making it seem eerie and have the true feel of a Gothic story.
At the end of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" Mr. Shiftlet is driving when he see's a hitchhiker and stops to give him a ride. Flannery O'Connor believes this makes the story work. Maybe because it gives the reader a little more background of Mr. Shiftlet to explain why he is the way he is and why he wanted to get the old woman's car. It makes the whole story click and brings out some of the Gothic because he was using people for his own selfish actions.
These two stories relate to the Gothic Romanticism by having dark Gothic elements. Imprisonment and dark endings are seen in both stories, which is also in Gothic Romanticism.
In "A Rose For Emliy", Emily's crime doesn't get discovered until the end because she kept herself isolated from any people. She first could have been discovered when the neighbors started to smell the awful scent coming from her house. Then when she was buying man clothes when she wasn't even married made them awfully suspicious of a man being in the house, though little did they know in what conditions this man was. She could be seen as someone going mad or insane because the lost of a loved one, or in this case, her father. These all contribute to the story by making it seem eerie and have the true feel of a Gothic story.
At the end of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" Mr. Shiftlet is driving when he see's a hitchhiker and stops to give him a ride. Flannery O'Connor believes this makes the story work. Maybe because it gives the reader a little more background of Mr. Shiftlet to explain why he is the way he is and why he wanted to get the old woman's car. It makes the whole story click and brings out some of the Gothic because he was using people for his own selfish actions.
how does the ending of "The Life You Save..." make the whole story 'click'...needs more about the selfish actions in relation to the traits of Southern Gothic Romanticism.
ReplyDeletein relation to "A Rose for Emily" Tobe isn't really Emily's slave, so much as a servant...as Southern Gothic Romanticism occurs after the Civil War, how is the fact that we see Tobe as a 'slave' an aspect of S. Gothic Rom?