Macabre and Grotesque in Southern Gothic
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Southern Gothic writers have a pretty kinky taste for the macabre and the grotesque. No, seriously: these folks are into things like incest, decomposing bodies, castration, and lot more.
Are Southern Gothic writers just weird? What gives? Well, for one thing, Southern Gothic literature is partly inspired by Gothic literature, which is all about horror and spooky stuff. Secondly, Southern Gothic writers were writing about a defeated society: the South is the part of the country that lost the Civil War. The war itself was a pretty grotesque experience, and it lived on in people's memories for a very long time, so it's really no wonder that we see elements of that grotesqueness in the work of Southern Gothic writers.
Shmoops:
William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" ends with the discovery of a corpse in Ms. Emily's bedroom. Talk about grotesque. Here's an analysis of the ending.
Mr. Guizac, one of the protagonists of Flannery O'Connor's story "The Displaced Person," dies in a pretty grotesque way. Have a look at this excerpt (Quote #5) depicting his death.