SOUTHERN GOTHIC English 1302. SOUTHERN GOTHIC Southern Gothic Literature is a sub-genre of gothic...
If you can't read please download the document
SOUTHERN GOTHIC English 1302. SOUTHERN GOTHIC Southern Gothic Literature is a sub-genre of gothic literature (think Poe and Shelley) unique to American
SOUTHERN GOTHIC Southern Gothic Literature is a sub-genre of
gothic literature (think Poe and Shelley) unique to American
literature that takes place exclusively in the American South.
Focuses on character, social, and moral shortcomings in the
American south; it reached its height between 1940-1960s. Notable
Southern Gothic authors include: Flannery OConner, Tennessee
Williams, Truman Capote, William Faulkner, and Carson
McCullers.
Slide 3
ORIGIN Elements of a gothic treatment of the South were
apparent in the 19th century, ante- and post-bellum, in the
grotesques of Henry Clay Lewis and the de-idealised visions of Mark
Twain. The genre came together, however, only in the 20th century
when Dark Romanticism, Southern humour, and the new Naturalism
merged into a new and powerful form of social critique.
Slide 4
Images of the Great Depression inspired Photographer Walker
Evans to claim: "I can understand why Southerners are haunted by
their own landscape." Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depicts
destitute pea pickers in California, centering on Florence Owens
Thompson, age 32, a mother of seven children, in Nipomo,
California, March 1936.
Slide 5
CHARACTERISTICS deeply flawed, disturbing or eccentric
characters who may or may not dabble in hoodoo ambivalent gender
roles and decayed or derelict settings grotesque situations
sinister events relating to or coming from poverty, alienation,
racism, crime, and violence.
Slide 6
CHARACTERISTICS drafty castles laced with cobwebs secret
passages frightened, wide-eyed heroines whose innocence does not go
untouched Comments on societys negatives or weaknesses to point out
truths of Americas southern culture Often disturbing but
realistic
Slide 7
THE GROTESQUE A characters negatives/undesirable
characteristics allow the author to show/comment on unpleasant
aspects of southern cultureracial bigotry, crushing poverty,
violence, moral corruption or ambiguity. Something physical in the
setting is unusual and often broken
Slide 8
Carson McCullers observes that Southern writers frequently
juxtapose the tragic with the humorous, the immense with the
trivial, the sacred with the bawdy, the whole soul of man with a
materialistic detail.
Slide 9
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS He was brilliant and prolific, breathing
life and passion into such memorable characters as Blanche DuBois
and Stanley Kowalski in his critically acclaimed A STREETCAR NAMED
DESIRE. And like them, he was troubled and self-destructive, an
abuser of alcohol and drugs. He was awarded four Drama Critic
Circle Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of
Freedom. He was derided by critics and blacklisted by Roman
Catholic Cardinal Spellman, who condemned one of his scripts as
revolting, deplorable, morally repellent, offensive to Christian
standards of decency. He was Tennessee Williams, one of the
greatest playwrights in American history. (PBS.com) (March 26,
1911-February 25, 1983)
Slide 10
The Glass Menagerie (1944) A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
Summer and Smoke (1948) The Rose Tattoo (1951) Camino Real (1953)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) Orpheus Descending (1957) Suddenly,
Last Summer (1958) Sweet Bird of Youth (1959) Period of Adjustment
(1960) The Night of the Iguana (1961) The Eccentricities of a
Nightingale (1962, rewriting of Summer and Smoke) The Milk Train
Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963) The Mutilated (1965) The Seven
Descents of Myrtle (1968, aka Kingdom of Earth) In the Bar of a
Tokyo Hotel (1969) Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis?
(1969) Small Craft Warnings (1972) The Two-Character Play (1973)
Out Cry (1973, rewriting of The Two-Character Play) The Red Devil
Battery Sign (1975) This Is (An Entertainment) (1976) Vieux Carr
(1977) A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1979) Clothes for a Summer
Hotel (1980) The Notebook of Trigorin (1980) Something Cloudy,
Something Clear (1981) A House Not Meant to Stand (1982) In Masks
Outrageous and Austere (1983)
Slide 11
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
Slide 12
Slide 13
Slide 14
Slide 15
Blanche DuBois A sensitive, delicate moth-like member of the
fading Southern aristocracy who visits her sister in New Orleans.
Mystery surrounds her throughout much of the play.
Slide 16
Stella Kowalski Blanche's sister who is married and lives in
the French Quarter of New Orleans. She has forgotten her genteel
upbringing in order to enjoy a more common marriage.
Slide 17
Stanley Kowalski A rather common working man whose main drive
in life is sexual and who faces everything with brutal realism. He
is a true man of his time.
Slide 18
Harold Mitchell (Mitch) Stanley's friend who went through the
war with him. Mitch is unmarried and has a dying mother for whom he
feels a great devotion.
Slide 19
Eunice and Steve Hubell The neighbors who quarrel and who own
the apartment in which Stella and Stanley live. They live on the
second level, while the Kowalskis live on the ground floor.
Slide 20
ELEMENTS TO NOTICE Music Colors, light (present or absent=
truth) Names of people, places, things Gestures Culture clashes
Flashbacks
Slide 21
WILLIAM FAULKNER September 25, 1897 July 6, 1962 American
writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner
is one of the most important writers in both American literature
generally and Southern literature specifically. Two of his works, A
Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers (1962), won the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. [2] [2] The Sound and the Fury (1929),
As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom!
(1936)
Slide 22
FAULKNER Southern Gothic often hinged on the belief that daily
life and the refined surface of the social order were fragile and
illusory, disguising disturbing realities or twisted psyches.
Faulkner, with his dense and multilayered prose, traditionally
stands outside this group of practitioners. However, A Rose for
Emily reveals the influence that Southern Gothic had on his
writing: this particular story has a moody and forbidding
atmosphere; a crumbling old mansion; and decay, putrefaction, and
grotesquerie.
Slide 23
A ROSE FOR EMILY First published in the April 30, 1930 issue of
Forum. The story takes place in Faulkner's fictional city,
Jefferson, Mississippi, in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha
County.Yoknapatawpha County It was Faulkner's first short story
published in a national magazine. Resistance to change: the most
recurrent theme in the story.