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Southern Gothic Research Paper

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Southern Gothic fiction is a genre characterized by its exploration of darkness, violence, and crime themes set against the backdrop of the American South. In this essay, I will show you different ways of southern gothic in the three influential works of Southern Gothic fiction: "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, and "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston.

Flannery O'Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find” has brutality and felony apparent not only in the actions but also in the words selected by the author. For example, “There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by another. Then there is silence. The old lady’s head jerked around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long satisfied insuck of breath”. Phrases such as “head jerked around” and “insuck of breath” paint disturbing, brutal imagery. Additionally, the actions of “She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest.”. …show more content…
For example “What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.”. The words rotted and inextricable show the darkness of the story. Another example is “Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.” I feel disturbed to think about that

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