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.
I definitely have to agree that The Goopherded Grapevine was hard to read. I actually lost interest in the story because i was getting so annoyed with the dialogue. The Sherif's Children I also thought was really long and drawn out. I think it could have had the same effect as if it was shortened and more to the point. I was certain that the brother was a ghost! I was also not expecting him to be alive.
ReplyDeleteI agree this transition into southern gothic literature has been a surprisingly difficult one. I was definitely not expecting this drastic of a dialogue change, and find it a struggle to read and maintain any sort of focus. Each story has the ability to be great short stories, but the difficulty in reading each word makes it much harder to enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI too feel these stories sound more like folktales, especially The Goophered Grapevine. Although I also found it incredibly hard to read this story, I found it somewhat necessary to include the dialect in this manner because I feel it makes it more authentic and real. I also was shocked that the brother in Jean-ah Poquelin was a leper and not a ghost or dead.
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