“Those black-eyed peas? They tasted alright to me, Earl you're feeling weak?” Did you know that most country songs like “Goodbye Earl,” by the Dixie Chicks are Southern Gothic Literature? Yes Southern Gothic Literature is found in songs, movies, and books. Southern Gothic Literature has several distinct characteristics, but the most important characteristics are violence, sense of place, and outsider. Violence is one of the most defining characteristics in Southern Gothic Literature.
Southern Gothic Literature can supernatural , disturbing , and suspenseful and clearly the landlady is all of those things. If they changed the setting to a broken down house spaced out away from the other houses and dried up grass with no sidewalks and trees everywhere it would definitely be Southern Gothic. The landlady is already supernatural enough she knew her guest would come before he did! The other character, Billy, could be
People began to question the existence of God or a higher power and Gothic novels allowed writers and readers likewise to delve and analyze all those unexplored, unknown territories of life and beyond, through storytelling. To sum up, Gothic literature makes use of all that is valued by the romantics, such as intense emotions and aedthetics but has an almost sinister side. In addition to decadently aesthetic features, Gothic Romanticism also contains nihilistic features: the hold, handed down values are lost, dark, melancholic resigned moods. In the same way, morbidly absurd inclinations, the so-called "night sides" of the human mind as well as fantastic-ghostly and grotesque are discussed. In addition, this tendency, especially in the trivial literature, with its partly amoral-abnormal theme (incest, necrophilia), finds two manifestations: the horror romance and the ghost story.
Days in Maycomb have never been normal for Boo Radley or Tom Robinson, over the years they get misunderstood and judged for reasons they don’t even understand. They only have two reason they could possibly “hate them”, rumors people are spreading and the sheer fact that people hated African American people. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee, “Boo the Monster” rests from the comfort of his home while he gazes at Jem, Scout, and Dill, which he sees he’s being mimicked for the things he “has done”. Tom Robinson stares back at a large crowd of angry people for a crime he didn’t commit but has no way to prove it. Racism is a horrible thing but in Maycomb Alabama, it was at it’s peak.
While Scout thought Maycomb was peaceful it was evidently a inhumane town. An example of these “MockingBirds” are: The first and foremost example of this heartless treatment is Arthur “Boo” Radley. He is the subject of not only multiple absurd rumors but also is looked down upon by his fellow neighbours and townsfolk. Children and adult alike fear him for what is heard of him and speculate ideas of the gruesome things he “must” do. “Boo drove the scissors into his parents leg,pulled them out,wiped them on his pants,and resumed his activities”
When defining the southern gothic genre, it 's the genre that is fixated on the grotesque and about the tension between the realistic and the supernatural. Some of the characteristics include alienation, decayed settings, and more. There are more elements that display this genre, and it 's all shown in the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. Within this story, it covers many of the characteristics that we see in southern gothic stories. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, we are introduced to one of the first main characteristic of a southern gothic story; a decayed setting.
For the children, Boo Ridley became a legend about a terrifying monster that never left house. They conversed among themselves about the "monster",and the two boys even acted out Boo 's untrue history. They 've heard simply untrue rumors about Boo Radley, just like how I heard rumors about Mr. Cash. However, as they grew older and the story progressed towards the trial, Boo Radley was no longer on the minds of the children. But towards the end, Boo reemerges as hero that saves Jem and Scout.
This unsettling evokes some of the key features of the Gothic, such as the use of phantasmagoria, transgression, and excesses, all of which disturbed the reader by surrounding them with dark reflections of a reality portrayed through fiction. Pacts with the devil to obtain one’s desires, monks and aristocrats who revel in luxury — even if this means they must stain their hands with blood —, vampires and mad scientists: all corrupt one’s morals, all corrupt the false appearance of serenity. Likewise, the female vampires who torment Jonathan Harker disturb the harmony of the domestic sphere and unsettle the delicate balance between the private and the public domain. These vampiric women are marked by heightened sensuality and tacked to other fatal women that permeate art and European literature at the end of the nineteenth century. In this novel, fear and desire are often confused, a clue modern anxieties surrounding desire toward sensuous but degrading bodies.
Boo Radley had been seen around town sometimes with his mother when he was a child. His father was a rude man who was highly religious. His wife kept secretive she would only leave to shop, or water the flowers. The reason that cause the suspicion on Boo was that he was at a party with his friends and vandalized property. His father promised the judge that Boo would never get in trouble again, and shut him in the house.
This rejection is caused by misjudgments. Therefore, outsiders are “outsiders” simply because they are misjudged. First, a common example of being an outsider is a high school student. Countless high school students feel like outsiders because they are unable to join cliques or groups of other students that they wish to be a part of. The reason for their separation from these groups is on account of being rejected out of misjudgment.