Explore Faulkner

This post was based on an American literature class I was given at my university. Enjoy! For the rest of this explanation about the Southern gothic genre, we'll use the example of one of Faulkner's short stories, "A Rose for Emily", considered to this day a classic of Southern gothic. If you haven't read the story... Well you will be spoiled. Remember the whole "normal story turning into melodrama turning into grotesque" system I talked about in my previous post? Well "A Rose for Emily" exemplifies this perfectly. What is the story about, at its core, at its heart? It is about a woman who lives in the past, who refuses to acknowledge the passage of time, who still lives in the 19th century despite being in the 20th. In itself, a classic story. Now what happens when the first ingredients of the violence are added: there is a murder in this woman's backstory. Well... it is more interesting, it has more impact, it isn't the story of a woman's routine - but it is still just melodrama.