What A Good Man Is Hard To Find Southern Gothic Characteristics

In literature, we can find Southern Gothic traits. They are most common in American Literature. The three stories that we have read have the Southern Gothic traits in them. One can tell these traits quite easily. There are a few traits in the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. One of those that we see in violence. There is a misfit in this specific story. The family finds him when they got in the car accident. This wasn’t a good thing though. The very last sentence of the story explains the violence trait. It says, “Shut up, Bobby Lee. It’s no real pleasure in life.”(Flannery O’Connor, 1953) When the misfit said this, we can only assume that he killed the family. Another trait that is shown in this story is Good versus Evil. The grandmother

One of those, like the other stories is being an outsider. Miss Strangeworth is the one person in the town who doesn’t fit in. She is the last of her family that is still living. The whole town knows it, and they treat her like an outsider because of this. Another trait that is shown is social structure. In the story, Miss Strangeworth thinks that she is better than everyone else. “Miss Strangeworth told the tourists, with a pretty little dimple showing by her lip, and she sometimes found her herself thinking that the town belonged to her.” (Shirley Jackson, 1965) This is saying how she felt like it was her responsibility to rid the town of all evil. This connects to another trait shown which is moral blindness. One can see that she is morally blind when she is being nosey. She tries to get dirt on the people in the town. She calls them evil even though she is the one who is getting in their business. The letters that she writes are the little bits and pieces of verbal violence that is shown. This type of violence is different than the other stories because it’s handwritten gossip letters instead of murdering people. This story has many Southern Gothic