1929-Present

What’s TRADITIONALLY “gothic?”Late 18th and early 19th century British gothic

novels: old castles, castle ruins, dungeons, maidens

being chased through spooky environments, winding staircases -> atmosphere resembling Tim Burton’s charcoal palette, or the spooky moments in Harry Potter

E.g. Frankenstein, The Castle of OtrantoE.g. What about Dickens?

Tim Burton

''American Gothic'' was born in August 1930, as Biel recounts, when Wood, a native Iowan, spotted the house he would make famous and decided to use it in a pencil sketch for a painting he planned to enter in the Art Institute of Chicago's 43rd annual exhibition (field trip to see this and the

Dorian Gray painting)

Viewers either loved it or hated it, but they all agreed on one issue: its attitude was satiric. Iowans were offended. A local woman told Wood he should have his head bashed in; another threatened to bite off his ear. Non-Iowans, especially the Eastern elite, felt the painting was a perfect comment on what they took to be sour Midwestern narrowness.

Stories set in American South MACABRE, adjective

- disturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death and injury.- EXAMPLE: "a macabre series of murders”

synonyms:gruesome, grisly, grim, gory, morbid, ghastly, unearthly, grotesque,hideous, horrific, shocking, dreadful, loathsome, repugnant, repulsive,sickening

GROTESQUE,

-comically or repulsively ugly or distorted,"grotesque facial distortions” synonyms:malformed, deformed, misshapen, misproportioned, distorted, twisted,gnarled, mangled, mutilated

FANTASTICAL (unrealistic, NOT fantastic) incidents +

physical and/or psychological “freaks”- hyperbole emphasizes social and cultural conflict (e.g. Hulga)

-e.g. Cormac McCarthy based No Country for Old Men’s antagonist, a grotesque character, on a version of the Misfit in

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” (bizarre killer)

Difference in setting and physical trappings from traditional medieval, gothic settings backwoods and small towns

Common denominator w/ traditional gothic murky atmosphere of irrational violence, desolation and decay- but Southern Gothic internalizes the darkness whereas traditional gothic externalizes it- the darkness is in the architecture or swamps outside of castles or in the dark cloak of a dejected character standing in the rain.

Flannery O’ConnorTennessee WilliamsTruman Capote - _In Cold Blood_ William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying, Sound and

the FuryEudora WeltyCormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQT7y4L5aKU

Grotesque characters, or “freaks,” are “examples of the folly of denying the true religion”

the whole man vs. the freakthe whole man = more than religious or God-fearing,

has “grace,” isn’t flawed by sin e.g. Manley Pointer is flawed but is an agent of God,

the catalyst for Hulga’s grace (for her transformation from unbelief to belief). What about the Misfit?

the freak = needs “grace,” “displacement” is theological in nature e.g. Who are the “freaks” in “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find?”

O’Connor: Devout Catholic in a mostly Protestant environment suffering from lupus

In general: in Christianity, grace is the gift of God that allows one to believe; the Holy Spirit is the force that allows Christians to believe, to go from unbelief to belief

O’Connor’s fiction - deeply religious despite violence

Stories dramatize sinfulness & need for graceIn O’Connor’s world, grace can killViolence prepares characters for grace“Grace exists in territory largely held by the

devil”

definition, origin, images

a decorative art in sculpture, painting, and architecture

fantastic representations of human and animal forms often combined into formal distortions of the natural to the point of absurdity, ugliness, or caricature

bizarre, incongruous, ugly, unnatural, fantastic, abnormal

interest in the irrational, distrust of any cosmic order, and frustration at humankind’s lot in the universe

Thomas Mann:

“the only guise in which the sublime may appear”

Flannery O’Connor:

“man forced to meet the extremes of his own nature”

fictional characters who are either physically or spiritually deformed and perform abnormal actions

intent vs. resultin the grotesque, an object or person may be

functional but its functionality isn’t practicalgargoyle vs. grotesque

Pay attention to how Manley Pointer’s entrance into and exit out of the story frame Hulga’s character. As Nabokov says, “fondle the details” to conduct your detective investigation.

-If the premise is that the Bible salesman is an agent of God or an “undeserved gift from God,” then what is he saving Hulga from? What is it that she thinks he lacks but doesn’t truly lack until the end? (her leg and nothingness)

Perhaps Flannery O’Connor invites her readers to judge Hulga because of her hubris, but it’s important to understand and not judge/identify with the character. When we judge, our judgment comes from a punitive place, a place of pain. Then we see only what we want to see and not what is truly there. A LIFELONG SKILL –enables us to prevent the impasse; by judging, we make the impasse impossible to overcome.