The Genre of Southern Gothic in A Good Man Is Hard to...

â€Å"When you cross the sweeping drama of romance with the macabre isolation of small town life-and then throw in a touch of Southern whimsy-you’ve cooked up a collection of American literature absolutely unique in time, place, and sentiment, Southern gothic.† Southern gothic comes from the genre of gothic fiction, and has some type of supernatural or unusual events in it. It is characterized as having a grotesque quality yet still having enough good in it to keep readers interested. The short story, â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† by Mary Flannery O’Connor, is often considered a perfect example of Southern gothic writing. In â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find†, O’Connor has characters typical of Southern gothic. Characters in this genre are†¦show more content†¦He questions himself and his religious beliefs, only truly believing what he sees. â€Å"‘I wasn’t there so I can’t say He didn’t’ Th e Misfit said. ‘I wish I had of been there,’ he said hitting the ground with his fist. ‘It ain’t right I wasn’t there because if I had been there I would of known.† (O’Connor 1041) The Misfit finds a lesson in all of his actions and is consistent in his morality, unlike the grandmother. He commits crimes, though does so believing that they are right and they do not matter. The main characters all come in contact with one another when the grandmother and her family are driving for a vacation in Florida, they get in a car accident and encounter the Misfit. They live in Georgia and the day before they left the grandmother was reading about the Misfit and trying to talk the family into going to Tennessee instead so that they would not chance being around him. The grandmother really wants to go to Tennessee to see her friends, but the dramatic irony of them actually meeting the Misfit and the situation they get in, is another typical ch aracteristic of Southern writing. The situational irony of the grandmother becoming a good, enlightened person after the short conversation she has with the Misfit in the story also shows how it is in the genre of southern gothic. She reaches out to him, after realizing that she is a sinner, and tries to redeem herself. She dies with a smile on her face because she becameShow MoreRelatedGothic Literature : The Southern Gothic Fiction1476 Words   |  6 Pagescharacters combined with southern charm and the ever-present gender divide to tell stories that represent a writing style known as southern gothic literature. â€Å"Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South. 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