From the 1840’s through to the 1950’s, a particular variation of Gothic Literature developed in the American South. This project uses the Rhizomatic concepts of rupture and the interconnectivity of texts to map how this iteration was shaped both by the precise historical context in which it first developed and the succession of historical contexts that followed as writers iterated on existing tropes within the genre to reflect the changing social and literal landscape of the Southern States. By focusing on the work of writers like Erskine Caldwell and Thomas Nelson Page whose work has been less often subjected to Literary Criticism as well as more established names such as Edgar Allen Poe and Flannery O’Connor, this thesis seeks to map how the use of setting and the supernatural within the genre developed over time. The wide historical scope of this thesis and the connections drawn between writers rarely considered together allow these developments to be shown in new and significant ways that highlight how the form of the genre allowed it to capture a wide range of often contradictory political and social concerns over this formative period at the cost of ever-growing symbolic complexity as meaning were overlayed on each other. Indeed, this thesis concludes that it is the flexibility in the iterative meanings of Southern Gothic tropes in holding multiple significances, old and new, that provided the foundation that allowed the genre to flourish as it has in the decades following those explored here.
| Date of Award | 24 Oct 2024 |
|---|
| Original language | English |
|---|
| Supervisor | Todd Borlik (Main Supervisor) & David Rudrum (Co-Supervisor) |
|---|