Southern Gothic Romanticism

 Southern Gothic Romanticism

is a subgenre of Gothic Fiction and takes place in the American South. The four themes in SGR are--Imprisonment, Violence, Sense Of Placement, and Freakishness.

Some traits of "A Rose For Emily" and "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" that exhibit Southern Gothic Romanticism would be---

"A Rose For Emily" has the traits of Emily being "imprisoned" in her house, not able to leave because of her own feelings not letting her. But then again, who says she wants to? She shuts everyone but Tobe out of her house for tons of years. "the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant – a combined gardener and cook – had seen in at least ten years." It has a sense of placement in Emily's house itself as well, we all know that one house in town that is old and big and gives off those certain creepy kind of vibes because it represents an era in which we are not in (in this short story it would be that the house is an old crumbling mansion and the houses and new sidewalk beside it are very different then this house.) The atmosphere in a lot of this book is gloomy and mysterious with the touches of creepiness sprinkled on in a lot of the places. Giving off a perfect Southern Gothic Romanticism.

"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" starts of with a sense of placement, describing the house with a porch with a rocking chair and it looks off into the sunset. It shows that the house represents a basic snug home kind of living where the house is an actual home for the people that live there, not just a place to stay. The Man (Mr. Shiftlet) that comes has only one arm, giving him the freakishness trait but the daughter mainly shows this trait as you can tell that she has a mental disability being deaf and not able to talk and childish even though she's almost 30. Then to wrap it up, the imprisonment is shown when the old woman doesn't want her daughter leaving the house and not allowing anyone but Mr. Shiftlet ever taking her away from her or the house.

SGR is a lot like Romanticism only in the south, after the civil war, and it's a lot creepier. It goes along with Dark Romanticism in the aspects of violence and imprisonment usually, however, DR is more dark and creepy than SGR and includes the devil, ghosts, demons, and supernatural things a lot more.

The two SGR stories have some Romanticism in them but I think they go along with SGR a lot more, especially in ARFE, considering it says "nigger" and makes comments on her skin color a lot, going with the aspect of that it's after the Civil War and people still call different colored skin people those kind of names. And in TLYSMBYO (hahaha long name) it has romantic aspects like when the old woman is talking about how Mr. Shiftlet and her daughter would be good together and how they should get married. I think that ARFE goes along with Dark Romanticism when it goes over the crime in the end, but doesn't completely fit the expectations because it doesn't go in great detail about the crime/murder. And TLYSMBYO has a little bit when he ditches the daughter but I don't really think that counts.

Miss Emily's crime goes undetected because -

1. She locked the upstairs wing/floor/rooms and sealed the door that lead to her crime scene shut. You realize this when it says that the people had to "violently break down the door."
2. She doesn't let anyone in her house except her servant-man-slave Tobe. It says in the story how no one had been in the house for 10 years since Miss Emily had 'stopped giving China lessons'
3. And lastly, when Homer Barron goes missing, no one would think it's because she killed him. They instead think it's because he went back to where he came from.

Thinking that he declined her marriage offer and they were disappointed that there wasn't a 'public blowing-off'.

The hitchhiker in the end of the story showed that Shiftlet was a hypocrite and cruel and only cared for his car that he has now achieved, because after the hitchhiker jumped out of the car he "Very quickly he stepped on the gas and with his stump sticking out the window he raced the galloping shower into Mobile"  but other than that, I feel like the author just threw something in the end of the story and called it good.