A Rare And Radiant Flower In Gothic Garden: Gothic Art In Flannery O'connor's Fiction

Flannery O'Connor is one of the most influential woman writers in American South after World War II. She achieved great successes in the field of novels and short stories. Her works, inheriting the Gothic writing tradition from Southern writers like Hawthorne and Faulkner, have developed a unique artistic style and received much attention from both critics and common readers for their strong religious flavor. O'Connor not merely embraced the essence of traditional Gothic literature, but also made some breakthroughs. This thesis, based on Gothic tradition of American Southern literature, focuses on O'Connor's Gothic art, and makes a comparison between her Gothic and traditional Gothic. The body of the thesis is divided into four chapters.Chapter One gives a detailed account of Gothic writing tradition in American literature. To begin with, it traces the origin of the word "Gothic" and the development of Gothic fiction. On this basis, the artistic features and aesthetic characteristics are generalized. During the period of Southern Renaissance, American South, with its unique history and culture, has offered a fertile land for the Gothic novel to survive and grow. Sothern Gothic fiction became one independent literary genre by its distinctive features. Chapter Two focuses on O'Connor's creative use of Gothic elements from two levels of Gothic motifs and plot. In her works, bloody violence and death is her common themes. The supernatural elements, horrible atmosphere, and grotesque characters also lend mystery to her works. Chapter Three presents the influence of American native culture on O'Connor's works. The creation of Gothic works keeps close ties with the lacking of religious beliefs in modern Western society, with the development of American society and history, as well as with her unfortunate personal life experience. Chapter Four explores O'Connor's innovation to Southern Gothic fictions. Most of her novels are the mixture of tragedy and comedy and share similar themes, aiming at realizing redemption by characters'violence followed by death. And also her freak characters are round and full of life. As for narrative techniques, the employment of a number of meaningful symbolic objects makes her stories more vivid and moving.In short, O'Connor's Gothic art is both traditionally and innovatively. Combining Southern Gothic tradition with her religious point of view and unique writing techniques together, she intends to explore the society and history of American South. In her works, O'Connor exposes the lacking of beliefs and values and thus awake human being to the reality. She creates not only for Southerners but for the whole human beings, which shows the importance of further study on her and her writings as well.