ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The Southern Gothic Literature is a subgenre of Gothic fiction in American Literature taking place in the Southern States of the USA, lasting from the time of the American Civil War (1861-1865) until today. The Southern States in the USA are those which used to belong to the Confederacy (I will clarify this later).

Detailed explanation-2: -The main characters of southern gothic stories are often strangers in strange places, small towns in Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana or Georgia (as in the case of Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor’s work) inhabited by the most compelling band of outsiders you ever thought possible.

Detailed explanation-3: -The setting of most of the Southern Gothic novels is the South. The writers mostly set their stories either on a plantation or some old slave quarters. Some of their stories also take place in the broken-down small towns in Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana or Georgia.

Detailed explanation-4: -Southern Gothic is a mode or genre prevalent in literature from the early 19th century to this day. Characteristics of Southern Gothic include the presence of irrational, horrific, and transgressive thoughts, desires, and impulses; grotesque characters; dark humor, and an overall angst-ridden sense of alienation.

Detailed explanation-5: -Southern Gothic is a literary style that takes gothic themes and places them in a magical realist American South setting. Gothic literature got its start in 18th-century England, as a means for authors to express the problems they saw in society.