Southern Gothic Blog Questions

         Southern Gothic Romanticism is a sub-genre to Gothic and takes place primarily in the Southern portion of the United States.  The plot is pushed along by ironic occurrences and situations.  The stories "A Rose For Emily" and "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" are examples of Southern Gothic Literature. Both stories take place in the south and have plots pushed along by irony.  In "A Rose For Emily" Emily lives in an old broken down house refusing contact with the outside world.  This allows the town gossips to create many fantasies about what is happening to Emily without ever finding out if the stories were true.  This is the unwelcome side of society that Faulkner shows us. In  "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" Mr. Shiftlet leaves his wife that he just married at a gas station and drives because he is depressed about her and then he picks up a hitch-hiker and tries to convince him to go back to his mother.  The boy insults him and jumps out.  The Irony here is that Mr. Shitlet is doing the close to the same thing.  The difference being that he is running from his wife and mother-in -law.  The stories are related to Dark Romanticism by motif.  The Motifs from Dark and Southern Gothic Romanticism and similar, at least as far as these stories go.  They have the sense of darkness and danger that come from particular settings in a story and the settings are based off of the same idea.  However, Southern Gothic Romanticism is not as dark and evil.  Like romanticism There is a gentle light that pervades the story, allowing one to hope for a happy ending.  We know that there will be one, it just won't be the same one we were thinking of.  For example, "A Rose For Emily" has Emily getting married and living happily together with him, after he is a corpse.  Gross and ironic? Yes, but still a version, albeit a twisted one, of Happily Ever After.

          In "A Rose For Emily" Homer's murder went unnoticed and uninvestigated until after Emily's death for 3 reasons.  Reason number 1, she convinced the druggist not to ask about why she was buying poison.  The story tells us that

"he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The

Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back.

When she opened the package at home, there was written on the box, under the

skull and bones: "For rats"(Faulkner). 

The Druggist assumed that it was for rat poison, after all its an old house, its bound to have rats.  Reason number two, Emily never left the house and the door was almost always closed, the story states that,

"From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or

seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china

painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms"(Faulkner).

 No one was giving access to the upper rooms even when they were inside the house.  But then you could ask the negro servant, after all he was the only one allowed in the house, he brought the poison to Emily.  Shouldn't he know what happened to Homer?  The answer, we don't know.  The story tells us that

"He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if

from disuse"(Faulkner).

Then after Emily's death he opened the door and left never to be seen again. no one questioned him because he wouldn't talk to them.  Then right before they had a legal excuse to hold him for questioning he vanishes.  At this point the people found out their if their suspicions about Homer were true, and they were.  There he was, dead on the bed, probably from poison.
             The Hitch-hiker at the end of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" does complete the story.  If you think about Mr. Shiftlet was probably in the same situation as a boy.  The segment brings him full circle and makes him want to stop someone from making his mistakes.  After all didn't he just throw away his best chance at married life?  Yes, he also threw away the chance of inheriting a paid-for farm.  He is trying to make the boy see that what his mother is doing is probably for the best in the long run.  Mr. Shiftlet realizes all he left behind and knows he can't go back because hat is were the storm of wrath is coming from.