In the story "The Life you save may be your own" by Flannery O'Connor, a man basically cons a woman into marrying off her deaf innocent, and secretly kind of old daughter, giving him her pick up truck, and 17 dollars and 50 cents, so that he can go home to his mother or something equally awful of him. He ends up leaving his new wife at a café where she falls asleep. He tells everyone she's a hitchhiker, and leaves. Boys are jerks.
Not to mention the fact that it was supposed to be a weekend trip to a motel and back. ha-ha-ha-ha good times, good times... Then he picks up a hitch hiker who is apparently leaving home, and that's where the motivation for being awful starts to become clearer. He starts raving about how much loves his mother, and how amazing his mother is out of the blue, to which the boy replies, "Go to hell. My old woman's a flea bag, and yours is a stinking polecat". Well, at least it's more original than dropping the f-bomb every other 5 seconds, am I right? At this point my English teacher is probably wondering how this is addressing the prompt in any way shape or form, but as a student of madness I must make things at least a little disorganized. The hitchhiker episode is a forming moment in the story because it makes the horrible Mr. Shiflet a more defined and human character. It reveals the motivation that has driven his actions, and moreover adds a lot of depth to his character. In the prompt my lovely English teacher asks why this episode makes the story "work". I would say that this adds a motivation to the story, and fully develops the main character. The story would have failed without it. There are several distinctive elements of the story which identify it as Southern Gothic romanticism, the presence of a grotesque, or a character that inspires both disgust and empathy. In Flannery O'Connor's story the grotesque would be Mr. Shiflet, whom is not only missing an arm, but did some pretty despicable things in the regret of leaving home, but homesickness is something we can all relate to, and we feel empathy for him. There is also the setting of the South, and "freakishness", or where the main character is set apart from the world in a negative way, or by Mr. Shiflet's missing arm. There is also a class difference in where the beginning of the story the mother sees Mr. Shiflet, and tells herself that he is just a dandy, and no one to be afraid of. All this leads this story to being classified under "Southern Gothic Romanticism". Moving on to the story of "A Rose for Emily", this is the story of a woman who hoarded dead people... let's let that sink in for a minute...now let's reread that... yep, I guess it really does say that. Talk about crazy.
My teacher wants me to explain why Emily's "crime" went undetected till her death, however, I don't actually think it's illegal to hoard dead people, and unless I misunderstood, I don't think she killed her husband either. However, if we are operating under the assumption that it is illegal to hoard dead people, I will explain the circumstance. The story begins with the death of Miss Emily. Then it goes back to relate events of her life, and the becoming of the shut-in she was. At the end it goes back to the townsfolk entering her house, and discovering the body they knew in their hearts was already there. Now, the obvious answer as to why her "crime" went undetected is that she was a shut in who refused to allow anyone to enter the house, but because everyone in the community pretty much knew her husband was dead, and still in the house, we also need to address the factor the southern culture played in the story. In that period of southern culture women were respected on some level, especially older women, and so no one could bring themselves to break that code of honor. She didn't want them in her house... well they weren't even going to try it. They even
went so far as to sneak around her house at night, and sprinkle lime on everything to stop the smell. But if my English teacher wants me to conclude that she killed her husband she is going to be sadly disappointed as people are innocent until proven guilty, and there is insufficient evidence to support any such claim. They found his body on a bed in the position of an embrace. Beside him in a pillow they found an indentation of a head, and on it a hair of the same iron grey that Miss Emily had, but i am going to conclude from this that Miss Emily sometimes slept with her dead and rotting husband. Which is sort of sweet...i think... actually no, that's really gross!!!!
There are several key things that make "A Rose For Emily" southern gothic romanticism. Not only the time period it was written, and the setting of the south, but also the elements of imprisonment, where Miss Emily was shut up in her house, and more importantly imprisoned within her own mind and by the inability to let her husband go. Also there is the presence of social classes, such as her "negro man" who did all the work around the house.
There are several different things which separate southern gothic romanticism from romanticism, and gothic romanticism. Southern gothic romanticism occurred in the south after the civil war as a backlash of their loss. It belongs under the umbrella term of modernism as it contains more progressive, and changing ideas. Romanticism is merely an umbrella genre under which falls things like fantasy, and other more specific forms of romanticism. Gothic romanticism did not necessarily occur, for the most part, in the southern part of the U.S. Southern Gothic romanticism takes the classic gothic romanticism characters such as the monster, and the hero, and turns them into southern characters.
this is pretty amazing! don't forget to do the EQs and the post over Gothic Rom! :D
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