Free Essay on A Rose for Emily and Good Country People

Southern Gothic is a style of literature that strongly stresses the application of Irony and Macabre to expose the various social problems affecting the South. The Southern Gothic style's main objective is to expose moral blindness and ignorance of the Americans in the South. Southern Gothic Literature style applies the writing style to promote the message of the writer. Moreover, the e writer uses the elements of Southern Gothic to emphasize on the various critical views of the South. The essay will thus explore the application of Southern Gothic as presented in the stories; A Rose for Emily and Good Country People. Each of the stories analyses their stories and brings out their literary ideas through the application of the Southern Gothic literary style (Mielczarek, Nick, 240).

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Good Country, people, is a story that is presented in a simple story that tells of the good country people. The story starts with the tale of two women, Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman, that discusses their children. Mrs. Freeman works for Hopewell, and they have two daughters. Hopewell has a daughter named Joy, who renamed to Hulga in order to make herself more unappealing. Hulga is presented as a woman with a bad heart, and she has never been in love. Still, Hopewell and Freeman have a bit of rivalry on the success in the raising of their daughters to be good people of the country (O'Connor, Flannery, 1370). A day before, a salesman of the bible known as Manley Pointer had come by trying to sell his wares. Manley Pointer was very charming enough to have a date with Hulga, but sometimes as sales go, not really quite charming enough to convince her mother to buy a bible.

As their date starts, Manley and Hulga then decide to have a walk, and they eventually start discussing the nature of life, God, and religion. But most importantly, Manley seems interested in the wooden leg. Manley seemed very interested in the wooden leg, and so he asks Hulga to have him see the leg. Despite Hulga having a doctorate in philosophy, she does not know the romantic nature of life. Manley draws advances to Hulga, and he tries to get some kisses by the loft. Manley finally gets Hulga's legs, and she gets upset about it, but Manley refuses to return the leg. Surprisingly enough, Manley reveals that the bible was holding whiskey and cards, it even turns out that Manley Pointer was not his real name (Faulkner, William, 110)

A Rose for Emily starts after the death of Emily Grierson, A protagonist who is presented as the main character in the story. The community attends the funeral, but as the narrator tells, no one really knew Emily. The narrator in this story is unnamed and is assumed to be a member of the town's people. The narrator tells that the reason why no one really knew Emily is because she was never married, and she died at 74, her entire life was a maze to the people. The narrator explains that the reason why Emily died alone was that her father had initially turned down most of her suitors, by the time the dad was dying, Emily had no more suitors. At this point in time in America, women were defined by their define roles as a mother, daughter, or wife.

The narrator elaborates on the collective pity that the town felt for her since her dad died. All that was left for her was the house. In most cases, when people passed by to pass their condolences, she would tell them that the father was not dead. Soon after, a strange started to emanate from her house. A significant part of the story is when she meets Homer Baron, who was a single Northerner who was in town to oversee the construction of new sidewalks. His reputation was scandalous, as presented by the narrator. He is described as a man who was never meant to marry. Homer starts an affair with Emily, which in many instances seemed very unlikely. The townspeople fear that she might poison herself as a result of his affair with Homer, the women then insist that the priest should try and talk to her because they were increasingly getting afraid. One time Homer gets in the house, and he is never seen again. Holed up in the house, Emily grows gray and plump (Bosco, Mark, 284). Despite the multiple she gave in her China painting, her door remained closed to the outsiders. She then closes the top floor of the house and only leaves the window for her glimpse of the outside world. Nothing is heard afterward until she died at the age of seventy-four.

O'Connor, in her book Good Country People, uses the development of his characters to support the critical analogy of the south fully. By the application of macabre and Irony, the writer vividly employs the various elements of Southern Gothic literature to emphasize the issue of moral blindness of the grandmother fully. O' Conner then uses the elements of irony and macabre in Good Country People to criticize the views of religion in the South. The story of O'Conner focuses on a girl by the name of Joy, who largely strives to get the approval of her mother when she does not get the approval she requires from her mother, and then she believes that she is not to be admired by anyone.

William Faulkner, in A Rose for Emily, used the style of Southern Gothic, to present his two major characters, Emily and Homer. The various instances of senseless violence that the writer uses in the creation of emotional shock to the reader helps to present the ideology of Southern Gothic creatively; Homer, for instance, is described as a scandalous person who was not meant for any marriage (Wolff, Sally. 15). The senseless violence between Homer and Emily points out the Southern Gothic literary style in the story. The author uses irony to paint a clear picture of the mind of the reader about the societal views and illogic concepts of the Southern to any minded person. For instance, it is senseless and illogical for a father to send away all of her daughter's suitors only to leave her to die an unmarried woman. It is also likely that Emily poisoned Homer and dug a hole in her house, hide the body. She later passes away in the same house with no one ever getting to understand the ideal nature of what happened in the house. Southern Gothic is a style that majorly employs irony and instances of senseless violence to depict the lifestyle of the people in the South. O'Conner and Faulkner creatively utilize this style in their respective stories.

Works Cited

Bosco, Mark. "Consenting to love: autobiographical roots of 'Good Country People'." The Southern Review, vol. 41, no. 2, 2005, p. 283+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://linkcom.libproxy.volstate.edu/apps/doc/A133011895/AONE?u=tel_a_vscc&sid=AONE&xid=2763cdda. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." The Norton Anthology of American Literature 1865-present. Ed. Robert S. Levine. 9th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017. 1009-1015. Print.

Mielczarek, Nick. "Narrative Motivation in Faulkner's A ROSE FOR EMILY." The Explicator, vol. 67, no. 4, 2009, .pp. 237-243. ProQuest, https://libproxy.volstate.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/578501142?accountid=14861.

O'Connor, Flannery. "Good Country People." The Norton Anthology of American Literature 1865-present. Ed. Robert S. Levine. 9th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017. 1367-1380. Print.

Wolff, Sally. "William Faulkner and the Ledgers of History." The Southern Literary Journal, vol. 42, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1-16,Gale Academic OneFile,

https://link-gale-com.libproxy.volstate.edu/apps/doc/A217244374/AONE?u=tel_a_vscc&sid=AONE&xid=128e4d23.