Southern Gothic  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Southern Gothic is a subgenre of gothic fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South. It resembles its parent genre in that it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot. It is unlike its parent genre in that it uses these tools not solely for the sake of suspense, but to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South.

The southern gothic style is one that employs the use of macabre, ironic events to examine the values of the American south.

Southern Gothic is the genre most frequently identified with grotesques and William Faulkner is often cited as the ringmaster. Flannery O'Connor wrote, "Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one" ("Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction," 1960). In her often-anthologized short story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find," the Misfit, a serial killer, is clearly a maimed soul, utterly callous to human life but driven to seek the truth. The less obvious grotesque is the polite, doting grandmother who is unaware of her own astonishing selfishness. Another oft-cited example of 'The Grotesque' from O'Connor's work is her short story entitled "A Temple Of The Holy Ghost."

Notable works

Literature

1929 Sartoris & The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

• Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

1930 As I Lay Dying & "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

1931 Sanctuary by William Faulkner

1932 Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

• Light in August by William Faulkner

1933 God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell

1935 Pylon & "Uncle Willy" by William Faulkner

• Kneel to the Rising Sun by Erskine Caldwell

1936 Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

• "Black Canaan" by Robert E. Howard

1937 You Have Seen Their Faces by Erskine Caldwell & Margaret Bourke White

1938 The Unvanquished by William Faulkner

• "Pigeons from Hell" by Robert E. Howard

1940 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

• "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty
• The Hamlet by William Faulkner

1941 Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers

• A Curtain of Green by Eudora Welty

1942 Go Down, Moses & "Two Soldiers" by William Faulkner

• The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty

1943 "Shingles for the Lord" by William Faulkner

1944 The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

1946 The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

• 27 Wagons Full of Cotton by Tennessee Williams
• "The Geranium" by Flannery O'Connor

1947 A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (Pulitzer Prize award)

1948 Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote

• Summer and Smoke & The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams
• Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner

1951 The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers

• Requiem for a Nun by William Faulkner
• The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams

1952 Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

1953 The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb

1955 A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O'Connor

• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (Pulitzer Prize award)

1957 Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams

• The Town by William Faulkner

1958 Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee Williams

1959 The Mansion by William Faulkner

• Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams

1960 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Pulitzer Prize Award)

• The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Connor

1962 The Reivers by William Faulkner (Pulitzer Prize award)

1965 The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy

• Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor

1968 Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy

1969 Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor

1970 Deliverance by James Dickey

1972 Geronimo Rex by Barry Hannah

• The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (Pulitzer Prize award)

1979 Suttree by Cormac McCarthy

• The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor by Flannery O'Connor

1978 Lancelot by Walker Percy

1980 A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (Pulitzer Prize award)

• Ray by Barry Hannah

1985 Locked In Time by Lois Duncan

1983 Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair by Lewis Nordan

• Oral History by Lee Smith
• The Tennis Handsome by Barry Hannah

1987 Beloved by Toni Morrison (Pulitzer Prize award)

1989 And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave

• The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole

1992 Joe by Larry Brown

1993 The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

• In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke

1994 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

1995 The Sharpshooter Blues by Lewis Nordan

• Bats out of Hell by Barry Hannah

1996 The Green Mile by Stephen King

1998 A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews

1999 The Long Home by William Gay

2000 Tideland by Mitch Cullin

• A Fine Dark Line by Joe R. Lansdale
• Provinces of Night by William Gay

2001 Yonder Stands Your Orphan by Barry Hannah

• The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris

2002 The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

2003 The Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli

2004 Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale

2005 Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest

• Gather at the River: Notes From the Post Millennial South by Hal Crowther
• November Mourns by Tom Piccirilli

2006 Wings to the Kingdom by Cherie Priest

2007 Not Flesh 'Nor Feathers & Dreadful Skin by Cherie Preist

• The Shadows, Kith and Kin & Lost Echoes by Joe R. Lansdale
• Hume's Fork by Ron Cooper

2008 Tennyson by Lesley M.M. Blume

• Firefly Rain by Richard Dansky

2009 Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

2010 Purple Jesus by Ron Cooper

Films

• The Story of Temple Drake (1933)
• Romance of the Limberlost (1938)
• Intruder in the Dust (1949)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, Best Picture nom.)
• The Night of the Hunter (1955)
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958, Best Picture nom.)
• The Defiant Ones (1958, Best Picture nom.)
• The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
• The Tarnished Angels (1958)
• God's Little Acre (1958)
• The Fugitive Kind (1959)
• The Sound and the Fury (1959)
• Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
• Desire in the Dust (1960)
• Summer and Smoke (1961)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Best Picture nom.)
• Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)
• Cape Fear (1962)
• Toys in the Attic (1963)
• Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
• This Property is Condemned (1966)
• The Chase (1966)
• Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968)
• The Reivers (1969)
• Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)
• The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)
• The Beguiled (1971)
• Deliverance (1972, Best Picture nom.)
• The Sugarland Express (1974)
• Days of Heaven (1978)
• Wise Blood (1979)
• The Beyond (1981)
• Southern Comfort (1981)
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1984, remake)
• Down By Law (1986)
• No Mercy (1986)
• Sweet Bird of Youth (1989, remake)
• Wild At Heart (1990)
• The Reflecting Skin (1990)
• Scorchers (1991)
• Cape Fear (1991, remake)
• The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1991)
• My Name Is Mud (1993, music video)
• The Neon Bible (1995)
• The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995)
• Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
• Sling Blade (1996)
• Eve's Bayou (1997)
• Eye of God (1997)
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
• The Gingerbread Man (1998)
• Wayward Son (1999)
• George Washington (2000)
• The Gift (2000)
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
• Two Soldiers (2003, short)
• Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003, doc)
• The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (2004)
• Undertow (2004)
• A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)
• Dead Birds (2004)
• The Skeleton Key (2005)
• The King (2005)
• Tideland (2005)
• Loren Cass (2006)
• Things That Hang from Trees (2006)
• The Reaping (2007)
• Black Snake Moan (2007)
• Midnight Bayou (2009)
• That Evening Sun (2009)
• Provinces of Night, AKA Bloodworth (2010)

Television

• American Gothic (TV series) (CBS, 1995–1996)
• True Blood (HBO, 2008–)

Music

• The Legendary Shack Shakers

See also

• African-American literature
• American Gothic fiction
• Dark romanticism
• Ghost story
• Gothic Western
• Magic realism
• Southern literature
• Southern Renaissance
• Southern Ontario Gothic
• Space Gothic
• Suburban Gothic
• Tasmanian Gothic
• Urban Gothic
• Weird West