Chesnutt and Cable

Southern gothic… where do I start?

Although I like these stories a lot, it is extremely difficult to read some of them when you have to sound out each sentence. The story could be just as effective if it was written in clean English. The hardest one to read was “The Goopherded Grapevine.” When Julius was speaking, the sentences were mostly just vowels and random consonants (maybe that’s a little bit dramatic but nonetheless, still hard to read). I enjoyed the story and liked how Henry’s hair was compared to a grapevine, it was vivid at least. The thing I noticed about all of the readings for this week was that they sort of reminded me of old folktales.

“The Sherrif’s Children,” was interesting but I thought it was a little bit long and drawn out. It has been the one story that we read though, where the main character actually kills himself. “Jean-ah Poquelin” was about the same. Both stories showed a lot of dialogue that I didn’t think was all that necessary. Although, the big twist at the end of “Jean-ah Poquelin” where his brother turns out to be a leper and not a ghost was not really what I expected.

All three stories had elements of mystery or legend of a curse. There was a little bit of suspense and all had issues of race intertwined.

Behind a Mask

In “Behind a Mask” our key character, Jean Muir puts on quite the show.  She creates this persona for herself as a governess and loftily charms everyone. As the story unfolds, you find out that she is really an actress pretending to be a governess because she wants to have a better life and get away from being an actress. In the end she gets exactly what she wants but along the way, she unmasks Gerald. Even though they discover each other’s true identity, they agree to continue to keep the charade up to protect their reputations.

I found this story difficult to analyze for gothic elements because its gothic nature is more subtle. The element of suspense is there when trying to figure out who Jean Muir is and there is a slight sense of horror at the end of chapter one when she takes off her hair and teeth.

I also thought it was difficult to like Jean. I really don’t like manipulative people and she is a pro. I can respect that she at least made Gerald a better man but I really don’t like the way she went about doing so. I found myself feeling bad for Lucia.

As much as I hate the nature of manipulation, I feel like this story could be a metaphor for society. Politicians ultimately are not effective unless they are manipulative.  So, just like them, Jean would not have been able to get what she wanted as the mere actress that she was.

The Fall of a Legend

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was so fun to read. It was timed perfectly with the season as well, with it being close to Halloween and all. When I was a kid, I used to watch the cartoon version of this all time and I loved it. This story never gets old. Brom Bones is your classic Byronic character. He is suave and brawny. He has muscles and is impressive physically, but he is also a jerk and you kind of love/hate him all at the same time. Ichabod Crane is the nerdy character you pity to the point of love. You want him to be able to marry the girl of his dreams but if he did, there wouldn’t be much of a storyline.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a perfect example of the gothic novel. It takes place in a swampy, forested, secluded space. There is the element of mystery with the legend of the Headless Horseman. There isn’t a castle but there is a large farmhouse which is compared to a castle. You have the Byronic hero who wins the girl and the element of horror when Ichabod disappears in the end.

 “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a whole other monster to describe. The doppelganger is the house, itself which is given human traits. It’s reflection is different from its actual appearance and in the end, its crumbling is the actually fall of the House of Usher. This is interesting, because it is not Poe’s typical writing style.

The main character is a hypochondriac who believes he is ill. He buries his sister alive and thinks the house is surrounded by a green fog that is going to kill all of its inhabitants. Essentially, as compared to “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” it is also very gothic in nature. There is the sense of mystery, the doppelganger, the curse passed down through generations, and the sense of fear.

Overall, these are two of the better novels we had read and I appreciated that I was able to understand the writing better than I could in “Castle of Otranto” or “Romance of the Forest.”

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde vs. The Mortal Immortal

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is set in the non-traditional setting of London streets, instead of your usual gothic favorite of swamps or forests. There are no castles or abandoned abbeys. Although, I found myself getting very bored with the slow progression of this novel, I found it intriguing that Mr. Stevenson decided to take a new spin on “gothic” and create his own terms of gothic-ness.

I liked that the essential “monster” quality of the tale, is  the mystery behind Mr. Hyde himself. There is no ghost or helmet flying through the air. The mystery and gossip behind Mr. Hyde is what gives him all of his grotesque characteristics. You want to be disgusted with him but you are drawn in because you need to know more.

I feel like it is the same sort of thing with “The Mortal Immortal.” The story’s monstrous quality stems from something that the character does to himself. In both stories, the main character creates the mystery and suspense and the grotesque by making himself something that the reader despises.  In “The Mortal Immortal,” you feel so bad for him and his wife, that you actually wish him to be dead too, just so that he could have his happy ending. In “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” you love Dr. Jekyll so much that you want to stop Hyde from benefitting from anything until you realize the he is actually Dr. Jekyll himself.

There are gothic qualities to both of these tales but the qualities were not quite as obvious in “The Mortal Immortal” as they have been in past novels. Both stories were alright, but I didn’t particularly enjoy either one of them. Northanger Abbey was way better.