Southern Gothic Romanticism

Southern Gothic Romanticism is a mixture of romanticism and the old South's mysteries tales and beliefs. It contains certain aspects like freaky things, imprisonment, or violence. Though these two stories are very different they exhibit certain qualities of southern gothic romanticism like how they are both slightly freaky. In, "the life you save may be your own" the man comes along, asks all kinds of weird questions, marries the woman's special needs child who is abut 34 and then dumps her off at some eatery and leaves. All of this on the day of the wedding. Also in, "A Rose For Emily" it has an aspect of imprisonment because the woman is trapped so to speak inside her house after her father dies. Although southern gothic romanticism is like other types of romanticism it is quite different also. Compared to a dark romanticism, southern gothic romanticism is a walk in sunshine park. It is tremendously more bright and vivid but still has a weird or creepy twist somewhere within the story. Even compared to a gothic romanticism piece, southern gothic romanticism just has a hint of  weird creepy gothic taste whereas gothic romanticism is all freaky and weird.

In, "A Rose For Emily" the there are many reasons her crime goes undetected all the way until her death. One of them is the fact that Judge Stephens actually had people go around her house in the middle of the night and sprinkle lime and other chemicals around her house so that it would stop smelling. Another reason her crime goes unnoticed is because no one ever goes into her house. The short story says, "... to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant--a combined gardener and cook-- had seen in the last 10 years." So if no one ever went in then no one could find out about her terrible murder. A third reason her that her crime was unnoticed is that if the government ever did find out then they wouldn't be able to do anything about it. They learned this because they tried to talk to her about paying her taxes and couldn't and she was so hard headed she actually had them removed from her house. The story says, " So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before..." She had her manservant Tobe escort them out the house.

Flannery O’Connor, the author of “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, said that the hitchhiker Shiftlet picks up at the end ‘makes the story work.’ It  does this because it shows how Shiftlet works. How he never gets too intertwined with someone. He never actually gets too into depth with his relationships with anyone. Once he gets what he wants he leaves. This helps us understand how he 'stumbled' upon this family. He does this a lot. Its his job so to speak; using people is just what he does and how he makes his 'living'.