American%20Gothic

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American Gothic

• The Dark Side of Individualism

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Gothic Literature

• Characteristics
• Grotesque characters
• Bizarre situations
• Violent events

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• The door opened, and a figure glided in. The
  portmanteau dropped from my arms, and my hearts
  blood was chilled. If an apparition of the dead
  could not deny, this was such an apparition. A
  hue, yellowish and livid bones, uncovered with
  flesh eyes, ghastly, hollow, woe-begone, and
  fixed in an agony of wonder upon me and locks,
  matted and negligent, constituted the image which
  I now beheld.

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• The death. . . Of a beautiful woman is,
  unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the
  world-and equally is it beyond doubt that the
  lips best suited for such topic are those of a
  bereaved lover.

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• The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is
  fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear
  is fear of the unknown.

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Gothic literature

• Begin in 1765 with The Castle of Otranto
• Most beloved characters include Frankenstein and
  Dracula
• Currently, most well-know author is Anne Rice

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What inspired Gothic Literature

• Cathedrals and gargoyles
• Romantic movement in literature
• developed as a reaction to the age of reason
• let imagination wander to the dark side

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Romantics vs. Gothic

• See hope in individuals
• Beauties of nature

• See potential evil in individuals
• Darkness of the supernatural

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Master of Gothic-Edgar Allen Poe

• Elements of Gothic Poe uses
• Dark, medieval castles or decaying estates
• Insane male narrators
• Dead or dying beautiful female characters
• Extreme plots (murder, live burial, physical and
  mental torture, retribution from beyond the
  grave)
• Poe believed that only in extreme situations
  would people show their true nature

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Poes literary contributions

• Poetry
• should be musical, expressive of beauty and
  composed logically
• felt they were his greatest work
• Short Story
• First to insist that the story create a single
  effect
• Detective story
• Invented it

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Hawthorne

• Hawthorne used gothic elements, like Poe, to
  express what he felt were important truths.
• Unlike Poes look at the mind, he looked at the
  human heart under condition of
• fear
• greed
• vanity
• mistrust
• betrayal

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Gothics end and rebirth

• Popularity with Gothic literature ended with the
  Civil War.
• Realism begin (like Crane and Bierce)
• Reborn in the 20th century
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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Poe to Faulkner

• Crumbling medieval castle
• Ghostly figures

• Southern plantation
• Ghost of the past

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Hawthorne to OConnor

• Human heart and potential for evil
• Crumbling person
• Ghosts and goblins

• Human heart and potential for evil
• Crumbling morals
• Criminal, con men and fools

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Where is Gothic today?

• Characteristics
• Grotesque characters
• Bizarre situations
• Violent events

• Name it in
• Anne Rice
• Stephen King