The Gothic is an extremely viable mode in the history of American literature. As a genre concerned principally with distortions and aberrations, it provides a platform for writers to voice their concerns about periods of transformation and destabilized boundaries. William Faulkner, one of the leading authors of the American South, frequently employs the Gothic mode in his portrayals of the South as a traumatized region trying to cope with the echoes of the Civil War and with the disintegration of old aristocratic values, which manifests itself in the decay of institutions (such as the family) as well as a collapse of individual minds. This emphasis on the human psyche is evident especially in the novel The Sound and the Fury, whose main characters and narrators are representatives of the various extremities of the human psyche (severe mental retardation, suicidal tendencies, schizophrenia and paranoia). Faulkner's use of the Gothic mode is rather unorthodox and innovative, employing inversions and parody which can be appropriately demonstrated by the category of motion and his use of the traditional Gothic devices and character types. The traditional motion patterns - flight and pursuit, quest and purposeless wandering - that are originally connected predominantly with only one Gothic type (the...
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:311276 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Hesová, Petra |
| Contributors | Ulmanová, Hana, Matthews, John Thomas |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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