“The Masque of the Red Death” (Poe) – 1842“Hills Like White Elephants” (Hemingway) – 1927“A Rose for Emily” (Faulkner) - 1930“A Goodman is Hard to Find” (O’Connor) – 1955“Cathedral” (Carver) - 1983

American Gothic TraditionRooted in European Gothic tradition (think weird settings, macabre plots, monsters & gargoyles… Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein & Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and the Romantic movement (a reaction to the rationalism of the Age of Reason), imagination led to the threshold of the unknown…

• 19th century• Edgar Allan Poe (born Boston, Massachusetts, 1809)• Dark medieval castles; decaying ancient estates• Weird, terrifying events: murder, live burials, physical & mental torture, retribution from beyond the

grave• Male narrators, insane• Female characters, dead or dying• Shows people revealing their true natures; explores the human mind in extreme situations arriving

to an essential truth• Haunting tales exploring darkness of human mind

Edgar Allan Poe born Boston, Massachusetts, 1809• Flair for language, Latin & French – “ambitious to excel” 16 years old writing poems• Well-read• Morbidly sensitive nature, sadness & depression = basis of writing• Critics = strong response (love/hate)• 1 novel, 50 poems, 70 short stories

“The Masque of the Red Death”– 1842Edgar Allan Poe• Allegory• Symbolism• Foreshadowing• Mood (Atmosphere) – feeling conveyed through words• Detailed descriptions of setting – imagery (see, hear, smell, taste, touch) – Gothic settings• Precise words & phrases• Narrator who observes & participates in event recounted• Complex sentences: pile detail upon detail to describe scene or emotion• Complex sentences & inverted word/idea orders• Original: “In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence --an inconsistency;”• Reorder Rewrite: I was at once struck with an incoherence --an inconsistency - in the manner of my

friend;

Edgar Allan Poe “The Fall of the House of Usher” Author’s Style - ExamplesThe room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls.

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened --there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind --the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight --my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder --there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters --and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "HOUSE OF USHER."

“ During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I passed alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, with view of the melancholy House of Usher.”

“The Imp of the Perverse” “William Wilson” “Ligeia”We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse,… I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your question — that I may explain to you why I am here — that I may assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me mad.

But the house! — how quaint an old building was this! — to me how veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its windings — to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult, at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two stories one happened to be.

Dashes and other interruptersStrong rhythm & RepetitionFigurative language

I trembled not — I stirred not — for a crowd of unutterable fancies connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure, rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed — had chilled me into stone. I stirred not — but gazed upon the apparition. [page 468:] There was a mad disorder in my thoughts — a tumult unappeasable.

Formal language, diction & syntax, long complex sentencesRhetorical questions 1st person• more personal and real

Modernism 1900-1950Overview

“Make it new!” – Ezra Pound, modernist poet

• Rejection of traditional themes and subject matter• A focus on alienated individuals rather than heroes who stood for the values of the society• Frequently themes of impermanence and change• Use of understatement and irony to reveal emotions and ideas• Use of symbols and images that suggest meanings rather than statements that explain meanings• Use of stream-of consciousness techniques to show what’s going on both inside and outside the

characters• Stream of consciousness (coined by American philosopher William James) = waking mind’s flow of thoughts;

narrative technique to show mind at work by mimicking the mind’s thought process; use of ungrammatical construction, snippets of incoherent though, free association of ideas, images and words at the pre-speech level to show concept

Additional Resource• http://www.slideshare.net/mburdett10/introduction-to-modern-literature-19001950

Modernist… like Ernest Hemingway• The writers of Hemingway’s generation are often termed “Modernists.” • Disillusioned by the large number of casualties in World War I• Turned away from the nineteenth-century, Victorian notions of morality and propriety and

toward a more existential worldview. • Hemingway reflected Americans’ shifting attitudes about the violence and upheaval

of the modern world

“Hills Like White Elephants” – 1927Ernest Hemingway• Cub reporter for the Kansas City Star, short sentences and energetic English• Uncomplicated technique: plain grammar, easily accessible language. • Hallmark: clean style, eschews (avoids) adjectives, uses short, rhythmic sentences that concentrate on action rather

than reflection.Simple writing does not = “simple” plots, characters, or themes

• Characterized by spare description and dialogue• Master of dialogue: characters’ conversations demonstrate communication AND its limits. • captures the complexity of human interaction through subtlety and implication as well as direct discourse.

• The way they speak is sometimes more important than what they say, what they choose to say (or leave unsaid) illuminates sources of inner conflict.

• Sometimes characters say only what they think another character will want to hear.

• Very little explanation about the relationships between characters• Often 3rd person (distances reader, alienation)• Clipped direct dialogue adds to mood (lack of character connection, cannot express true feelings, sense of tension

and alienation• Omission of explanation and connection to events

Hemingway’s well-known concept of the iceberg structure:

• “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writing is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.”Death in the Afternoon (Scriber’s, 1932), p. 192.

• “I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows.”

After horrors of Civil War, Realism replaced Romanticism and Gothic writing, but Gothic writing returned…

American Gothic• American South, 20th century• William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor

• Faulkner crumbling, medieval castles of 19th century became decaying plantations with fallen aristocratic family isolated in time and place

• O’Connor saw pressures of modern life making grotesques of us all; interested in human heart & its potential for evil; felt old moral, religious order was crumbling (criminals, con mans, fools)

William Faulkner

• William Faulkner Quick Facts• NAME: William Faulkner • OCCUPATION: Author• BIRTH DATE: September 25, 1897• DEATH DATE: July 06, 1962 • EDUCATION: University of Mississippi • PLACE OF BIRTH: New Albany, Mississippi• PLACE OF DEATH: Byhalia, Mississippi • Full Name: William Cuthbert Faulkner • AKA: William Faulkner • Originally: William Cuthbert Falkner • AKA: William Falkner

Additional Resource:• http://www.biography.com/people/william-faulkner-9292252

• 3:53

“A Rose for Emily”- 1930William Faulkner• Dark side of individualism • Flashbacks • shuffles order of events• unusual approach to sequencing events• heightens shocking revelations to tell out of order• based on his notion of fluidity of time, past and future seem to merge

• sentences begin with when, after, during help reader

• Foreshadowing

• Other Technical Innovations• stream of consciousness• temporal shifts• multiple voices• Invented portmanteau words (words formed by merging two existing words), for example,

“fecundmellow,” “Allknowledgeable.” “droopeared.”

Faulkner: associated with exceedingly long, unwieldy sentences

• Used opposite tactic from Hemingway (who stripped down style to intimate what could not be precisely named)

• Faulkner used a superabundance of words • dramatized that his language is, like characters, evocative but imprecise• overwrought sentences are oratorical—suggesting a narrator who speaks freely and

grandiloquently.• Faulkner said of Southerners: “We need to talk, to tell, since oratory is our heritage.” • Interview - wrote long sentences for two reasons:

1. writing with “a foreknowledge of death,” = pressure “to put the whole history of the human heart on the head of a pin.” 2. “a character in a story at any moment of action is not just himself as he is then, he is all that made him, and the long sentence is an attempt to get his past and possibly his future into the instant in which he does something.”

Faulkner, a Southerner• Strong sense of belonging to a tradition, separate from the Northern mainstream • aristocratic families• great plantations• slave labor

• Concerns with history—representing how time passes, blends, and recurs. (see flashbacks)

• Characteristics of time period• 1880s socially unacceptable for Southern “lady” to associate with “Yankee”, class division

• “A Rose for Emily” - interest in arranging layers of history (vs. telling a sensational tale)

“A Goodman is Hard to Find” – 1955Flannery O’Connor• Who is Flannery O’Connor?• http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=170488 • http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2009/11/20/november-20-2009-flannery-oconnor/5043/

Quick Facts• NAME: Flannery O'Connor• OCCUPATION: Author• BIRTH DATE: March 25, 1925• DEATH DATE: August 03, 1964 • EDUCATION: University of Iowa • PLACE OF BIRTH: Savannah, Georgia• PLACE OF DEATH: Milledgeville, Georgia Best Known For• Flannery O'Connor is considered one of the best short story authors of the 20th century. She wrote about religious themes and southern life.• Intense Catholic faith

Southern Gothic TraditionSouthern Gothic tradition = • genre, or “type” of literature within the American literary canon• emphasizes the supernatural or the grotesque • reflects socio-cultural decay and evokes brooding sense of evilCharacters• almost comic absurdity• insincerity & base motivations evoke a dark side of human nature• grotesque characters obsessed with sin and salvation• unsympathetic characters= individualism consist of bizarre assortment of peculiarities, calling to mind

our own idiosyncrasies and imperfectionsIrony• Story Title

• O’Connor quoted: “Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”

Additional Resource• Jamie Kornegay The Evolution Of Southern Gothic• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-kornegay/the-evolution-of-southern-gothic

_b_6987510.html

“Cathedral” – 1983Raymond Carver• [Raymond] Carver is widely seen as the writer who introduced the minimalist style to

American fiction in the 1970s. In doing so, he, like Hemingway decades before, influenced an entire generation of young writers-a group of whom, Jay McInerney among them, became known as the literary Brat Pack. Their very contemporary and very minimalist stories filled the pages of the best magazines and journals in the United States in the early 1980s-and so began a renaissance of the short story. . . .Carver greatly admired Hemingway's writing and saw it as an influence on his own work. He called "Cat in the Rain" "one of my favorite stories by Ernest Hemingway" (Pope and McElhinny 17)

• “Minimalism" in fiction. • “You're leaving room for the readers, at least for the ones who like to use their imaginations.“

(Frederick Barthelme)• Carver stories show both the power of the so-called minimalist approach and its limits.

Basic Qualities of Minimalist Fiction

• Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, leading to a very short story • Easy vocabulary • Simple sentence structure • Little figurative language • Minimal description of characters and setting • Minimal background information • Use of brand names to quickly characterize/describe • Very little action • Often written in the present tense • No resolution • Nihilistic tone

Some Reasoning Behind Minimalist Fiction 1. A changing culture with less time to read and less interest in reading because of:

• a broader array of leisure time activities due to the growth of such things as malls, multiplex theatres, social groups/organizations, etc. • increased mobility with the rise of two- and three-car families. • the impact of new technologies (i.e., computers, videos, cell phones, cable television, etc.) and the activities they offer. • the increased number of women in the workforce.

2. A decline in the general reading ability of Americans. 3. A desire for the truth, the “tell it like it is” attitude that is the trademark of minimalist writing:

• The rise of the popularity of minimalism is often connected to the disillusionment Americans felt in the face of the 1960s assassinations, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, etc., leading to a desire for “cold, hard truth.” (This continues with events through the past few decades with such things as the Iran-Contra affair, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, the Iraq War, etc.) • A reaction against the hyperbole of American advertising that began in the 1970s and continues today

** An interesting (if somewhat improbable) theory connects the gas

“Cathedral” – 1983Raymond Carver• Diction – language is clear, simple, repetitious at times• Irony• Paradox (seeming contradictions)• Thematic Topics: obsessions, love (marital), epiphanies (or are they?), silence,

working class, alcoholism• Characters – struggling with finding a way to articulate problems, words are

inadequate• issues of class (most, if they have jobs, are marginally employed)

• Understatement – understated climaxes & inconclusive conclusions (hence, questionable epiphanies)

• Narrative strategy of omission – what is not there as important as what is there – dialectical relationship between unsaid and the spoken

Raymond Carver • Critics = characters are too ordinary, under perceptive, and despairing to experience

the philosophical questions of meaning into which they have been thrust. • Defenders = characters demonstrate that people living marginal, routine lives can

come close to experiencing insight and epiphany under pressure of intruding mysteries, such as the death of a loved one.

Raymond Carver: An InterviewAdditional Resource:• The Paris Review, Interviews: Raymond Carver, The Art of Fiction No. 76• Interviewed by Mona Simpson, Lewis Buzbee• http://

www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3059/the-art-of-fiction-no-76-raymond-carver

Sources• The Language of Literature: American Literature, McDougal Littell, 2002.• THE BIG READ National Endowment for the Arts • Murphy, Joseph C. “William Faulkner: An Introduction”• Susanne Rubenstein, “When Less IS More—Understanding Minimalist Fiction,”

National Council of Teachers of English, 2015.• 2015 FamousAuthors.org• Jones, Paul. Contributing Editor: Raymond Carver (1938-1988)http://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/carver.html• Trussler, Michael, “The narrowed voice: Minimalism and Raymond Carver, Studies in

Short Fiction”; Newberry; Winter 1994;