Fight Club

It was really good to watch a movie with distinct Gothic elements to support the literature that we have been reading all semester. Instead of reading and allowing our minds to create the Gothic settings of the stories, we were able to see someone else's portrayal of a Gothic story.

Fight Club definitely revealed Gothic elements. Some of these include the large old house they lived in, most everything was taken place at night, feminism (in a sense where men were feeling oppressed), doppelgangers, insanity, and grotesque fighting.

It was really interesting to get to see the story played out in front of me rather than creating it in my own mind. There was no question if it was Gothic or not because it was clear through the setting, acting, etc.

The Yellow Wallpaper and A Jury of Her Peers

These two short stories, "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "A Jury of Her Peers" both are written by  women. These women are crying out from a feminist standpoint from feeling oppressed by men in society.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is about a woman who is given "rest cure" to cure her from post natal depression. It is written from a first person perspective, so at times the reader does not know if they can trust her account of the situation, or if she is literally going crazy in her room by herself. She even sees women crying out for help in the yellow wallpaper of her room.

In "A Jury of Her Peers", Minnie Foster is accused of killing her husband. Essentially, the men and women of the town are the jury's of the  trial. The women can relate and understand Minnie's situation where the men are just searching for evidence that she killed him. The women find out that she indeed did kill her husband, but it wasn't out of pure intentions, but instead, her husband led her to do it after years and years of being suppressed in her marriage. When he killed her bird, that was the last straw.

The women in both of these short stories are similarly living encased in their lives as if they were in jail. There is no way out because of the men in their lives who limit their opportunities.

In both of these short stories, the main Gothic element is feminism The term feminist is used to describe any group of people that are being oppressed. In this case it is women being oppressed by men.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Both of these short stories, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" deal with men and unsuspected murders. The stories are completely different but very similar in building suspense and foreshadowing to the death of innocent people. It definitely reveals Gothic Elements throughout the stories. In both of the stories there are innocent people who are suspected to be killed. In "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" it is a family and grandmother driving to Florida, and in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"the innocent person who is suspected to be murdered is a fifteen year old named Connie.

In both of these stories, these people are isolated from society around them before they are killed. The family traveling to Florida turned down the wrong street and was stopped by their killer, also known as The Misfit. The whole family was taken into the woods to be killed except for the Grandma. Once the Grandma was alone, and heard her family get shot in the woods, The Misfit, shot her three times. Directly after shooting her he started cleaning his glasses, as if nothing was odd about that. Regarding Connie, she stayed at her house by herself as the rest of her family went to a family barbecue. An older man who was clearly stalking her came to her house and enticed her outside of her house to take a ride with him. The reader is suspected to believe that he takes her away from her house, rapes her, and kills her.

These aspects of isolation and murder reflect Gothic elements because it creates an eerie tone to the stories. The reader feels uncomfortable reading these stories because the short stories are very real to life and could essentially happen to anyone.

Rose for Emily and Old Gardiston

Both, "Rose for Emily", and "Old Gardiston", are two different stories that about two different women, but they both struggle with trying to keep time stand still. In a Rose for Emily, she is a very mysterious woman in her town. She never marries, but she did fall in love. Many men always chased after her, but no man was ever good enough for her by the standards of her father, and later the town. The man was just a common man, so it would be against society if she was seen with him. Instead of embracing time and enjoying every moment, Emily holds on to certain moments. When she died, there was a room found in her house, covered in dust, with her lover's skeleton on the bed and a piece of her "iron grey hair" lying on the pillow next to it. Emily had a hard time letting go of what once was, and the only way she finally was able to let go, was by death itself. At the same time, Gardis, the main character of Old Gardiston, wanted to make time stand still. She inherited a great southern mansion, that was falling apart because nobody had the money to keep it up. Gardis wanted to make time stand still, and hold onto the family name, what they once were, which was southern and proud. Event the house is described through proud personification, "Gardiston house, the living reminder and the constant support of that family pride in which she had been nurtured, her one possession in the land which she had so loved". After resisting letting go of the house, and resisting her northerner suitor, Gardis succumbs to both of these things. In the end the old house burns down, and she finally allows herself to fall in love with a man even though he is from the north.

The fact that these women wanted to make time stand still, created a Gothic element in these short stories. In a "Rose for Emily" the end scene was very Gothic including, the mystery of what might lye behind Emily's door, extreme amounts of dust, and a skeleton in the bed. In "Old Gardiston" there was the old southern Gothic mansion, the ending of a family line, and later the burning of the house.

Behind A Mask and Southern Goithic Short Stories

We finished reading Behind A Mask, by L.M. Alcott, who really wrote it under the name A.M. Barnard. It was a very interesting novel revealing how authors make their characters hide behind masks, as well as themselves. Just like Jean, the character in her story, Alcott hid behind a mask by writing under another name. It is interesting though because in the end of the story, the governess, Jean, who was ultimately changing the roles in the house by ruling it instead of serving them, gave everyone what they needed, after messing with everyone's hearts. It makes you wonder that if hiding behind a mask is really all that bad? Sometimes it gives a person a little bit more confidence, and ironically, more truth comes out behind the lie of a mask. I think this is because there is no option to hurt your own pride if someone disagrees with you, but if you are not wearing a "mask" to protect you and your opinion, someone could ultimately hurt your feelings and pride.

We also began reading short stories from the Southern Gothic such as, "the Goophered Grapevine", "The Sheriff's Children", and Jean-Ah Poquelin". I enjoyed reading these, but then again, I did not necessarily enjoy the endings of these stories. These stories tell an important story of our Country's history of a past that is so sad, and reading about this time period in and through the ironic stories about curses, illegitimate sons, and disease ridden brothers, it is sad at the end to think that those stories tell a deeper meaning about the history of America, and the fight of the Civil War.

Edgar Allen Poe

We read two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher" and, "Ligeia". Poe really brings out the grotesque part of the word Gothic. I was very disturbed by both of the outcomes of these stories. In "The Fall of the House of Usher", Roderick Usher berries his twin sister ALIVE. And in "Ligeia", mysteriously two of his wives die, and after his second wife has been laying in his bed, dead for days, the spirit of his first love, Ligeia, overtakes his dead wife's body! That is what I describe grotesque!

Poe also uses descriptive imagery to describe and set the scene of his gothic settings. He intently talks about the gloom, the moonlight, and the crack in the house of Usher, vacant eye like windows, and the decayed trees. He even refers to "a sickness of the heart" when describing the house. With these descriptions you feel apart of the eery-ness that Poe unveils.

In "Ligeia" he also uses imagery to set the gothic scene. In this short story, he focuses on light and dark imagery. When he is with Ligeia, his one true love, everything is in a light shade, and when he is with his second wife, whom he married for her status in society, everything is in a shade of darkness. His context, symbols, and use of words really makes the reader feel apart of the grotesque story.

Young Goodman Brown and Sleepy Hallow

These are the fist Gothic novels that we have read that are taken place in America. It is very interesting because it relates to American history-- something we are all very familiar with. It brings a twist of uncertainty to something so certain.

I think that Young Goodman Brown also points to inherently good or inherently evil in human beings, similarly to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This time, Goodman Brown goes to a satanic meeting in the middle of the night and sees all of his loved ones in the same meeting. It forever changes his outlook on life, now knowing what his loved ones are living for. Hawthorne plays on the word "Faith" meaning believing, but also using the word as Goodman Brown's wife's name. Goodman Brown says things like, "Faith kept me back a while" and "My Faith is gone!". Both of these quotations can be interpreted to be about his wife or his personal faith.

The Legend of Sleepy Hallow is about Ichabod Crane trying to come into a sleepy little town, and ultimate believe he can run it. Little does he know what he is getting into. While he is there, he hears about the evil spirit of the Headless Horseman. I think it is interesting to read these stories that are placed in America, and to see what how the author interprets the situation and adds their own element of gothic to America. Here Irving is able to set the gothic scene in this small little town that seemed to be tiny and quaint, but in reality the scariest spirit from the Revolutionary War roams the dark nights.