This narrative style asks one of the story’s main questions: how well can we really know the past - and who’s version do we believe most? Some of the narrators look back on American Southern history with pride in its many enduring traditions, while others look back with horror over its legacy of slavery. This self-proclaimed masterpiece is one of Faulkner’s most challenging novels to read: it’s told in fragmented accounts from various narrators, all with their own unique perspectives and biases. But extremes can be devastating, and Thomas’s overweening ambition and his need to control everything around him bring about the ruin of his family and himself. And when he marries into a respectable family, his journey to achieving that goal begins. One day, a formative experience sets a life goal ablaze in him: to be wealthy. The novel centers around Thomas Sutpen, who grew up in a poor family in backwoods Appalachia. Published in 1936, many consider Absalom, Absalom! to be William Faulkner’s magnum opus - including Faulkner himself, who remarked, “I think it’s the best novel yet written by an American.” (Tell us how you really feel, Will!) Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936) While Southern Gothic has a way of making you question reality, let’s get a grip on what the genre’s really like by reviewing ten of its stand-out works.ġ. William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor are two of the more prominent names that come up in relation to Southern Gothic - but many of today’s most acclaimed writers have dabbled (or been firmly planted) in the genre. Takes 30 seconds!ġ0 stand-outs of Southern Gothic literature If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great horror books out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized horror book recommendation 😉ĭiscover the perfect horror book for you. In others, it drives home the point that reality can be even darker than monsters and ghosts.
In some Southern Gothic books, the supernatural is used to heighten the sense of horror. The humor is dark and the angst is palpable. The macabre and grotesque are sketched out in flowery prose. It’s a genre characterized by contrast, mixing elements of dark romance, horror, and the supernatural. By the same token, Southern Gothic literature aims to expose the underbelly of the idyllic: cracks in the foundation of a decaying grand mansion, seething intentions behind pleasantries, unsavory thoughts of the supposedly pure. Gothic literature got its start in 18th-century England, as a means for authors to express the problems they saw in society. Southern Gothic is a literary style that takes gothic themes and places them in a magical realist American South setting.
Guide to Southern Gothic: 10 Dark Must-Reads
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