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