Recategorize the key elements, themes, and motifs of American Gothic literature into Northern and Southern Gothic. (6 each, you will NOT use any more than once)
madness, corruption, severe guilt, horror, hopelessness
the grotesque; the mentally or physically disabled or disturbed; bigotry
witches, demons, vampires, and ghosts
anxieties around race, inheritance, and poverty
plantations, intense heat, heavy trees, agricultural motifs
anxieties around a judgemental society / wrathful God
guilt (of one's sins; shame)
Nothern Gothic
Southern Gothic
Recategorize the paintings below of American Gothic artwork into Northern and Southern Gothic.
(click on the images to zoom)
Still shot from the movie "The VVitch"
Edwin Harleston, Boone Hall Plantation (1925)
"Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon" by Caspar David Friedrich
"American Gothic" painting by Grant Wood
Nothern Gothic
Southern Gothic
Which of the following motifs is NOT an identifiable motif of Southern Gothic?
generational trauma, curses, and inheritance
whispering or burbling brook
decay and deteriorating places
an oppressive, heavy sun; hot sluggish days, cool violent nights
What "haunts" the south in Southern Gothic lit?
the horror of what people are capable of doing to other people
the history of the south and the "skeletons" of our past (civil war, slavery, etc.)
religious trauma and the fear of God's coming judgment
the fear of your neighbor and what they "could" be up to over there...
Both A and B
Both C and D
What is the most "iconic" symbolic imagery of Southern Gothic movement?
blood, gore, and the grotesque
towering mountains over deep fog
sowers, mowers, reapers, and the harvest
the dark and spooky woods
creepy castles, mansions, and estates
Which of the following is NOT an immediately recognizable setting for Southern Gothic.
bayou and swamps; floods
plantations and agricultural locations
cabins in the deep woods
huge oak trees, spanish moss
Flannery O'Connor coined the term "generational trauma" to refer to the way you have to be from the South to truly understand its history, culture, and truth.
True
False
Most Southern Gothic texts center around the ruling class, or the powerful/dominant group.
True
False
In Southern Gothic lit, you might come into Nature seeking Truth, but you're not going to find it, or, if you do, it will be by accident or grace.
True
False
Southern Gothic rarely includes the supernatural and monsters, magic, and ghosts are atypical of this movement.
True
False
While not technicallya Southern Gothic text, Steinbeck ascribes southern gothic themes, and imagery onto migrant workers in California in order to compare migrant worker experience to post-bellum south in the novella Of Mice and Men.
True
False
Consider this excerpt from Their Eyes Were Watching God:
What sentence here BEST supports the assertion that this text is Southern Gothic?
It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on.
But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands.
They say in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against the cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His.
They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
Consider this excerpt from Other Voices by Truman Capote:
Which THREE phrases BEST supports the assertion that this text is Southern Gothic?
But we are alone, darling child, terribly, isolated each from the other
so fierce is the world's ridicule we cannot speak or show our tenderness
for us, death is stronger than life, it pulls like a wind through the dark
all our cries burlesqued in joyless laughter, and with the garbage of loneliness stuffed down us
until our guts burst bleeding green, we go screaming round the world
dying in our rented rooms, nightmare hotels, eternal homes of the transient heart.
Consider this excerpt from Other Voices by Truman Capote:
In this passage, what literary device really heightens the horror?