Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Liberal Studies

Department

Liberal Studies

Committee Chair

Colin Chapell

Committee Member

Christine Eisel

Committee Member

Jeffrey Scraba

Abstract

The goal of this dissertation is to provide a foundational definition of the southern gothic literary genre. In this analysis, I argue that the core of the southern gothic is a Christian/secular paradigm and that all of the conflict within these narratives is principally grounded in this dichotomy. Not only does this framework provide the best interpretive lens to understand the genre, but it ameliorates the cloud of confusion in the critical scholarship, wherein a wide and fluid array of propositions are advanced on what essentially comprises the southern gothic. I execute this via an interdisciplinary strategy, adopting scholarship and arguments from the spheres of literature, history, theology, philosophy, and sociology. Literary and historical analysis are the most integral, with my methodology being structurally grounded in exploring the fictional works and historical contexts of three of the most noteworthy southern gothic authors of the twentieth century: William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Cormac McCarthy. I analyze various narratives by these authors, placing them in conversation with the historical situations in which they published their works. Though they wrote in different styles, lived in different time periods, and focused on different aspects of American society, the nucleus of their works, and of the southern gothic genre overall, is a Christian philosophical attitude and set of baseline beliefs clashing with secular forces. By applying my framework to the works of three of the most prominent southern gothic authors across a full century and showing how they interact with and represent the complex culture of the South, I provide a much-needed intervention. Though the numerous hallmarks of the genre are not made irrelevant, they are properly recast as a necessary set of literary tools in service of a much more foundational thematic purpose — the presentation of a battle between a Southern perspective of Christian traditionalism and the encroaching machinations of secular ideologies. Ultimately, this examination is broad and substantive enough to confirm that these authors’ works are seated in a Christian/secular dichotomy. Moreover, it serves as a compelling representative sample, allowing my framework to be extended to the entire genre as a whole.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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