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Southern Gothic

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Southern Gothic Literature Background Sub-genre of the Gothic style Popular in Europe in 1800s Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Dracula by Bram Stoker Unique to American ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Southern Gothic


1
Southern Gothic
  • Literature

2
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
  • explores and reveals social issues concerning the
    cultural character of the American South.

3
Background
  • Takes classic Gothic archetypes, such as the
    monster or the heroic knight, and turns them into
    American Southerners
  • Dark twist on Southern characters
  • Southern belle as town tramp
  • Righteous preacher
  • as pedophile
  • 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

4
Defining Feature
  • Cast of off-kilter characters
  • Broken bodies, minds, or souls
  • symbolizes problems created by the established
    pattern
  • questions established patterns morality and
    ethical justification
  • Innocent as common character, who may or may
    not be broken, but who often acts as a redeemer
    for others

5
Other Specific Features
  • Freakishness
  • Outsider
  • Imprisonment
  • Violence
  • Sense of Place

6
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.

7
Outsider
  • characters are set a part from the established
    cultural pattern, but end up being heroes
  • difference allows them to see new ways of doing
    things that ultimately help to bring people out
    of the dark.

8
Imprisonment
  • Both literal and figurative
  • Often includes incident where a character is sent
    to jail or imprisoned
  • Some characters live in fate's prison.

9
Violence
  • Racial, social, and class differences often
    create underlying tension, oftentimes, erupting
    in violent ways

10
Sense of Place
  • Clear depiction of rural southern setting
  • Old small towns
  • Creaky front porches with rocking chairs
  • Old downtown with stately but worn-down buildings

11
Notable Southern Gothic Lit.
  • Bastard Out of Carolina
  • Midnight in the Garden of Good Evil
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Streetcar Named Desire
  • A Rose for Emily

12
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