Gothic Romanticismin in "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner and "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" by Flannery O'Connor

Southern Gothic Romanticism is a style in American literature that often involves irony and a plot filled with unusual events. Objects, characters, and themes in Southern Gothic Romanticism may include a grotesque, a strange object, and the themes of freakishness, imprisonment,violence, and sense of place. A couple examples of Southern Gothic Romanticism include, "A Rose for Emily" and "The Life You Save May Be Your Own".



“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
A Rose for Emily is an example of Gothic Romanticism because it exhibits irony, unusual events, a grotesque, and the themes of imprisonment, violence, and sense of place.

• Irony is exhibited when Emily, a reclusive woman, actually kills her lover so that he will stay with her. This is not expected by the audience because a sane person in the American society does not typically kill someone they love.
  
• The theme of freakishness is exhibited in “A Rose for Emily” and is visible in her mental disease which leads her to kill her husband. Her thoughts and actions are unusual and sickening which leads the reader to classify her as freakish. Although she is freakish, her loneliness inspires sympathy thus making her the grotesque of the story.
  
• The theme of violence is shown through the actual murder of her Homer Barron when Emily poisons him with arsenic.
  
• The theme of imprisonment is shown through Emily's reclusiveness.
  

• The theme of sense of place is noticeable when Emily's home is being described. These descriptions set the scenes throughout the story.
  “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with
  cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the
  seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and
  cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that
  neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and
  coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps--an eyesore
  among eyesores.” (Faulkner)
  

This quote from “A Rose for Emily” by Faulkner shows that the house of Emily is very old and adds a mood of curiosity as the description of her house causes the reader to wonder what took away from the brighter mood once found in the residence of Emily.

“The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O'Conner

“The Life You Save May Be Your Own” is an example of Southern Gothic Romanticism because it exhibits irony, unusual events, a grotesque, freakishness,and sense of place.

• Irony appears in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” when Shiftless abandons his wife at a restaurant and drives off, following which he picks up a hitchhiker due to his belief that “a man with a car had a responsibility” for others. He feels like a man with a car “has a responsibility for others”, yet he drops the responsibility he has for his wife by abandoning her at a restaurant. This act perplexes the audience of the story as they wonder what drives Shiftless to be so blindly hypocritical.

• Shiftlet is the grotesque of the story “The Life you Save may be Your Own” because of his missing arm and the fact that he is a homeless tramp. However, when Shiftlet offers to help renovate aspects of Mrs. Crater's home and car in exchange for the very least, a place to stay, this repulsion is forgotten and the reader begins to find a love for the armless man. The reader begins to hope and watch him overcome his disability as he makes himself a more meaningful piece of Mrs. Crater and her daughter, Lucynell. Unfortunate, the readers are deceived by these actions. He eventually leaves his wife behind at a restaurant. Instead of using the abilities he does have to help others, he takes his abilities to his advantage long enough to get a car before leaving his wive, poor Lucynell behind.

• The theme of sense of place is shown in the description of Mrs. Crater House:
  “In the evenings he sat on the steps and talked while the old woman and Lucynell rocked violently in their chairs on either side of him.” (Connor)
  This quote from Connor's work gives a description of a setting often unique to Southern type works, rocking chairs and porches.
  
  
  
  

In “A Rose from Emily”, why do you think Miss Emily’s crime goes undetected until her death? Identify at least three contributing factors and support them with reference to the story.

In "A Rose for Emily", Emily, a mentally ill and reclusive woman, murdered Homer Barron, a man who was hoped to marry her by the rest of the townspeople. Emily's crime of poisoning Homer Barron went undetected because of the town's little knowledge concerning Emily and her well-being, Emily's high reputation, and the sympathy of the townspeople.

The towns people did not know a lot about Emily. They didn't see her very often because she never left her house. This lack of knowledge lead them to ignorantly assume that the stench around Emily's house was caused by her male housekeeper's poor cooking skills or a snake or a rat killed by her manservant out in the yard."Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly," (Faulkner) the women would say. The falsely supposing townspeople had no clue that the stench of the house was actually pervading from the dead corpse of Homer Barron, stashed away in an upstairs bedroom. Instead of confronting Emily herself on the matter, a few men are sent to secretly cover the foul stench with lime. This method successfully covered the stench, but did not reveal the actual source of the sickly miasma.
Another Factor that concealed Emily's crime was her family's high reputation. Her father was known for his political involvement and Emily was recognized for her families contributions to the community through a tax break. Emily's father was very picky about who Emily was permitted to date, and he kept their family's standards very high. This likely helped conceal Emily's crime because generally people of high reputation in a community are highly favored and are not  known for murder. This idea restrained the population of townspeople from ever suspecting Emily crime and helped conceal the poisoning of Homer Barron.

A third factor that kept the murder of Homer Barron hidden, was the sympathy that the townspeople felt towards Emily. Emily was very lonely after her father died, and rumor had it that he didn't even leave her an inheritance besides their house. They felt even more sympathetic when it became apparent that Emily was going to have a difficult time finding a husband.
The townspeople's sympathy towards Emily's loneliness only made Emily's crime easier to commit unsuspected. When signs showed up that allowed them to assume Homer and Emily to be married, they snatched the opportunity. "They are married." (Faulkner) they said. Since they assumed them married that made it Homer's murder even less obvious because, logically, it wouldn't make sense for Emily to kill her husband when the chances of finding a husband had been slim for her in the first place.

When the towns people made a assumptions off of what they heard, they found  reality to be contrastingly different. Basing their assumptions off of rumors and past reputations proved to be inaccurate, and when her reclusive nature kept from knowing the truth, they had no primary source to verify their rumors with. If they had known more about Emily, they might have been able to help her with the mental illness that lead her to murder Homer Barron. Because they didn't have reliable sources, Homer Barron's murder went undetected.

Flannery O’Connor, the author of “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, said that the hitchhiker Shiftlet picks up at the end ‘makes the story work.’ How do you think the episode with the hitchhiker does this?

Towards the end of the short story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" by Flannery O'Connor, Mr. Shiftlet drives away with his new wife, leaving her mother behind for what was said to be . After driving for a period of time he decides that his wife is probably hungry. He pulls over to a restaurant called the “Hotspot” and Lucynell falls asleep at the counter. The boy behind the counter comments on Lucynell saying she looks like "an angel of Gawd". Shiftlet lies and says she is a hitch hiker (not his wife), orders her a plate of food, and leaves feeling depressed. As he drives he keeps an eye out for hitchhikers and sees a sign that says the words, "the life you save may be your own". Seeing a hitch hiker, he pulls over and offers a ride to him. The hitchhiker is a young boy who has obviously left "somewhere for good". Mr. Shiflet, feeling oppressed, begins chatting with the boy, telling him of how his mother was an "angel of Gawd". This angers the hitchhiker, and he shouts, "You go to the devil! My old woman is a flea bag and yours is a stinking pole cat!" Following these remarks he jumps out of the car. Feeling as though "the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him", Shiftlet prays to God to "Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!" and drives into Mobile.

This section of the story 'makes the story work' because it represents one's committing of a sin while attempting to also save their soul from damnation. Shiftlet commits the sins of both lying to the the boy at the counter by saying his wife is a hitch hiker and leaving his wife behind when he is expected by his mother-in-law to take care of her.
Before the couple leaves she says with tears,"And I wouldn't let no man have her but you because I seen you would do right. Good‑by, Sugarbaby…" This scene shows why Mrs. Crater let Shiftlet marry her daughter and how much she trusted him. Unfortunately, Shiftlet is not as trustworthy as Mrs. Crater believes him to be, and he leaves Lucynell behind at a restaurant.
On his way to Mobile, Mr. Shiftlet feels “more depressed than ever”. Believing that “a man with a car had a responsibility to others” and seeing a sign that says the phrase, “Drive carefully. The life you save may be your own,” he stops his car to pick up a hitchhiker. This act represents trying to compensate for the committing of a sin with other good works. He explains to the hitchhiker of how he left his angelic mother and how he regrets leaving her, possibly in attempt to ‘open the eyes of the hitchhiker’ so he will appreciate his own mother fully. He explains this regret with tears, but doesn’t acknowledge that he also wrongly left his angelic wife. What he may have thought to be a good work, giving a hitchhiker a ride and attempting to encourage turning back to a mother, turns out to be an act of hypocrisy. This angers the hitchhiker and drives him to jump out of the car, completely canceling any hope of compensation for Shiftlet’s sin.