Southern Gothic Romanticism

Southern Gothic Romanticism

     Southern Gothic romanticism is a sub genre of Gothic romanticism that focuses on the South and has supernatural, unusual ironic events that happen in the story. Southern Gothic romanticism also features grotesque in their stories. A character in a southern Gothic romanticism is usually considered grotesque if they induce empathy and disgust. Different features of Gothic romanticism are freakishness, imprisonment, violence, and sense of place. The stories, "A Rose for Emily" and "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" are both examples of Southern Gothic Romanticism. Both of these stories take place in the South, and they both have odd scenes that happen in the story. For example, we know that in the story, "A Rose for Emily" it takes place in the South because at Emily's funeral, it says that there were old men dressed in their old confederate uniforms. A scene that the reader would find odd is found in the end of the story. This is the scene or part where they find Emily's husband laying in the bed, dead, and starting to decay. This was frightening to the reader, because it was something that wasn't expected at all. The story says, "The man himself lay in bed", and "The long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of his nightshirt." The first quote explains that when the people from the funeral open one of the rooms in Emily's house, they found her husband, known as "the man" laying in one of the beds. The detail about the man comes in the next quote, which tells us that the man was in love with Emily, and that he was in bed with her when he died. This quote also tells us what is happening to his body, and we can infer that he had been left there for a long time. In the story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", we know that it takes place in the South because at the beginning of the story, Mr. Shiftlet tells the old woman that he is from Tarwater, Tennessee, but then he says that he is from different places and he tells the old woman different names that he could be because he is establishing the point that they have never met and how could she tell if he was lying. But all of the places he tells her are in the South, so the reader can infer that this story takes place in the South. The reader can also tell this from the way the old woman and Mr. Shiftlet talk, with the words they speak. An odd scene that happens in this story is also towards the end, when Mr. Shiftlet and the old woman's daughter, Lucynell Crater just get married and they are driving in the car that Mr. Shiftlet fixed. In this part of the story, they stop at a diner to get Lucynell something to eat, and when they walk in their, she falls asleep with her head leaning on the table. Mr. Shiftlet orders and pays for her food, and he tells a boy to watch over her, and he leaves the diner alone, leaving Lucynell, his new wife, sleeping in the diner with a server boy. He takes off driving and he finds a boy on the road, figuring he ran away from home, and he picks him up in the car and continues on driving. He starts talking to the boy about mothers, and he gets extremely angry and jumps out of the car. But Mr. Shiftlet doesn't mind, and he keeps driving and he drives toward Mobile, Alabama, and the story ends. This scene confused the reader a lot, it started to get extremely confusing when Mr. Shiftlet leaves Lucynell in the diner sleeping. This makes the reader wonder if he ever loved her, or if he even wanted any of this to happen to him. It confused the reader even more when he picks up the boy off the side of the road and makes him angry talking about mothers. This shows the reader that Mr. Shiftlet that he doesn't care about anybody, and that he acts like he has no heart and he can do whatever he want. He also shows a character of greediness, because the reader can infer from everything that happened in the story, that all Mr. Shiftlet wanted was the car parked in the garage. From the very beginning, he shows interest in the car, because he always looks at it and says that it is a nice car and always asks about it. Then once he fixes it and repaints it, he drives it around and goes to town with it and he takes Lucynell with it to go on their honeymoon for a weekend. But when he leaves her in a diner and picks up the boy and then the boy leaves, from all of the interest Mr. Shiftlet showed in the car, the reader can tell that that's all he cared about. These two stories are excellent examples of Southern Gothic Romanticism. These two stories compare to romanticism because they both show traits of romanticism. Both of these stories show love at some point in their stories, even though that love might not have lasted long. These two stories also show a trait of romanticism, they both show the individuality of a person. For the story, "A Rose for Emily", the individuality is shown and represented in how Emily stays isolated in her house her whole life until she dies. Also in the story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", the individuality is shown in Mr. Shiftlet because he only cares about himself and what he wants. These stories also compare to Gothic romanticism because they both show a darkness in their stories. In "A Rose for Emily", the darkness is shown when the author describes Emily's house and when the author talks about Emily's isolation. Darkness is shown in "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" when the author shows the reader the real evil in Mr. Shiftlet, when his selfishness is revealed.

     In the story, "A Rose for Emily", Miss Emily's crime goes unnoticed until her death because she is isolated and kept to herself. She doesn't bother anyone around her, and they don't bother her. Her crime was not paying her taxes. The crime goes undetected because the government didn't want to make a big deal about it, or make a big scene. In the story, Miss Emily says, "I have no taxes in Jefferson, Colonel Sartoris explained it to me." Every time the people from the Jefferson government tried to tell Emily that she needed to pay her taxes, she would always deny it and say that she had no taxes. A factor that contributes to the crime going undetected is when the government would send her tax notices in the mail and she would send the tax notice back to the government with a note, saying she didn't have to pay taxes. Another factor is when no body would talk to her, or bother her at all. She was alone besides the man who lived with her and went to town to get supplies and food. Emily usually never left her house.
     In the story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", the hitchhiker that Shiftlet picks up makes the story work because it shows how Mr. Shiftlet really acts. It shows Mr. Shiftlet's real character. Mr. Shiftlet is bragging to the boy about his mother, knowing that the boy had just run away from his home. Even as Mr. Shiftlet can tell that the boy doesn't want to talk about it, he keeps going on about how his mother is the best and it is better than the boy's mother. Mr. Shiftlet is a rude, selfish man, and this scene shows this character the best out of the story.