Gothic Genre – A Good Man Is Hard To Find

MLA Format. 2 outside sources aside from short story. Identify Gothic generic (genre-related) conventions in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, and consider what the story is doing at a rhetorical level. How is the author of the story using genre (and for our course, we are thinking about the Gothic genre in an American context) to make some larger claim? Goddu uses the Gothic genre tradition to make a larger argument about race and culture in American history. She demonstrates how the American Gothic tradition exposes readers to its “haunted” past, challenging narratives about American history that mythologize the past and “cover up” the darker truths about this country’s origins.

Further Description

Don’t regurgitate Goddu’s argument, but essentially perform the same move. In other words, think about the Gothic genre in relationship to one of the short stories assigned, and ask: what is the Gothic genre doing in this story? The questions my General Analysis will pursue are: how does the fiction in this story make it fit into the  genre? What words are being used that make us believe this is Gothic? Does it help us visualize the story being told? Who is the intended audience? How does this story affect the reader emotionally?

The overall argument of my paper will be that this story fits perfectly into the genre the author intended. Gothic is a sub-genre of Horror and this story is specifically Southern Gothic. The time and place of the story proves this. As for the actual context of the story and events, it fits perfectly into the overall genre. It also presents perfect storyline for audience interested in genre. Plan to use specific pieces that add to the key genre conventions and stylistic choices that prove my argument. The link to the short story

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