Southern Gothic is a subgenre of fiction, music, film, theatre and television heavily influenced by Gothic elements and set in the American South. Its fiction highlights violence and cruelty as features of Southern culture, often through characters whose place in the social order exposes them to such treatment, with common motifs including racism, gender and sexual difference, poverty and disability. Where Gothic literature depicted the intrusion of a barbaric past into the Enlightenment, Southern Gothic depicts the persistence of social trauma in the reconstructed South, and some theories suggest the genre arose in reaction to romantic portrayals shaped by Lost Cause myths and the ideology of American exceptionalism.
Facts
Place of OriginThe American South, its Gothic elements first appearing in the ante- and post-bellum nineteenth century. 1 Notable ExampleWilliam Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell, grouped in 1935 by critic Ellen Glasgow among writers of the Southern Gothic School. 1 Defining TraitDepicts the persistence of social trauma in the reconstructed American South, with motifs of racism, gender and sexual difference, poverty and disability. 1 Connections
Sources
1. Southern Gothic (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory sectionQuote, History section
In 1935, Ellen Glasgow critiqued the writings of Erskine Caldwell, William Faulkner, and the "Southern Gothic School", stating that their work was filled with "aimless violence" and "fantastic nightmares".
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