On Flannery O'Connor's Gothic

Flannery O'Connor, (1925-1964) is a celebrated 20th century American woman writer. Her story seems to be easy and humorous, actually it is shocking and startling. Irregular story, blood and violence, gloomy religion, typical southern settings, together with groups of freakish, demonic people enchant O'Connor's works with special glamour. O'Connor always focuses on the spiritual crisis of modern people, exposing the complex and perplex human nature. But she doesn't do the job by telling the story and criticizing simultaneously. She only reveals the real world with extreme amplification to the readers. They can taste, appreciate, think over, and conclude the meaning by themselves. The subjective trace of the writer is erased out as much as possible. Thus more space is left to the readers. By using the Gothic art, O'Connor reveals a natural and mysterious, visible yet unseen, ordinary yet peculiar world to the readers.Some critics have already discussed the usage of Gothic elements in Flannery O'Connor's works. They mainly focus upon the Rural Gothic or the Southern Gothic. The thesis tempts to analyze the special Gothic craftsmanship of Flannery O'Connor's literary writing. So after the introduction, this paper is to list out the origin and the history of the Gothic-the rise of American Gothic in particular. Based on this tracing, the dissertation is about to generalize Flannery O'Connor's heritage and development of the Gothic tradition. It is the most important that O'Connor inherits the Gothic spirit-psychological interest and social concern.The third chapter concludes the former analysis, points out distinctive features of Flannery O'Connor's Gothic: postmodernistic, religious and regional. Uncertainties of the texts, dim distinction between high art and mass culture together with merciless satire and criticize of the real society indicate that O'Connor has predicted some features of postmodernistic novel. Her works are full of ideas oforiginal sin and dense southern backdrop. The devout religion belief not only provides her spiritual relief, but also the heart of philanthropy and a pair of dialectical eyes. She puts the implied meanings of religion and transcendence together with the particular southern reaction and the self-life experience together. The violent humorous and weird picture is its cloak form. The readers are shocked to find and feel the bizarre actions and prodigious feelings. Because of chronic illness, she has to be restricted in a farm and writes there. To her, religion is not only a means to recognize the world, but also a spiritual supporting pole. The despair and pain, which is caused by the lupus, make her extremely sensitive for the morbidity and abjection. The restriction of the life scope enables Flannery O'Connor to observe the world deeper. The Gothic in her hands is like a magnifying glass to reflect the limits and shorts of human nature in an amplified way. Constant threat of death makes O'Connor often questioning the meanings of life and death. Base on this, Flannery O'Connor produces a kind of self-exploring, self-reflecting novels which become prevailing in the late stage of American literature. O'Connor prescribes fragile southern family relationship. It is very easy to be broken under outside attack that often results in shocking but reasonable death. Yet death and violence is not the final purpose in O'Connor's writing. Instead, it serves as enlightenment, a necessary road to redemption. In death, O'Connor not only reveals the spiritual dilemmas of the modern world, but also finds a way out for it.The fourth chapter focuses on the vehicles of Flannery O'Connor's Gothic: violence and death, grotesque, supernatural hauntings and allusion. The prevailing violent description is not aiming for sensation. It is the path to divinity. Those grotesques with physical disability suggest their mental shorts. All grotesques are longing for the love bestowed by the God. They are twisted because they don't have religion belief. The power of mystery indicates the presence...