The Southern & Southern Gothic Aesthetic ; What's the Difference?

Southern 

'Southern' by itself holds an entirely different meaning for me than 'southern gothic.' When I think of the word southern, it pulls at my heart strings a little bit. I've lived in the south my entire life, and my favorite films of all time are set in the south (Safe Haven and the Notebook, pictured below). When I think southern, I think of open, flat land, an abundance of animal life and wildflowers- huge plantation/Acadian style homes, wallpapered walls, wooden furniture, wooden floors, wooden and white architecture, s i m p l i c i t y, wooden swings hanging down from huge old oaks, mossy, family orientated, happy, free, delightful. Like a breath of fresh air. These qualities won't be on every corner of the south, but these are the kind of characteristics that stand out and truly take my breath away. 

Southern Gothic 

Southern gothic puts a whole new aesthetic on the topic. When I think southern gothic, I think dark and dreary.Haunted. There's no sunshine and butterflies in my imagination when I think of this, that's for sure. It's like 'southern' took a detour and is headed straight for h e l l. I know how dark that sounds, but doesn't gothic have that dark cloud hanging over it? Southern gothic screams from darkness the horrors of slavery, dirtiness, dramatic scenes, intense people, intense relationships, inward confusion, dictators and punishment. The word gothic itself is so loaded that when it's paired with another it just overtakes it.

In my mind, these are examples of blatant southern gothic:

Discussion

 

On the very first day in my southern gothic literature class we discussed what southern gothic meant to us. We had a really great list . Most of us could agree on southern gothic as having this beautiful, dramatic baroque and rococo architecture (pictured above). Baroque and rococo is a type of style that I'm sure can translate to any medium, so when i think of a lavish, bold, prominently styled man I think none other than : 

Our list went on to entail "intriguing darkness," "rural, creepy, quiet, hidden." Which none other describes that aesthetic more than the picture below. If I had been the one to take this picture, I would have had to take a peek inside, or a full on tour. THIS is intriguing. Can you imagine the story, possible horrors, behind this broken down house? Questions that come to mind is who lived here, what kind of family was it, was it a broken family, is that why they abandoned their house? Spooky, I know. What's so great about southern gothic is that in my mind the gothic is what lays on that black & white, broken filter. I feel like you could take really any southern esque picture, slap a dark filter on it and title it gothic. If you notice the picture below only differs from my 'southern' pictures above because it's broken/abandoned, and in black & white. Both sets of houses that I chose to show are built with wood lain horizontally with many windows and varied heights. So I guess when it comes to me I differentiate southern and southern gothic architecture(houses, mostly) by whether or not they've been abandoned.  

In terms of literature I think that I hold the same idea. When I hear 'southern gothic literature' I think of old works, like Cane, Poe, and Desiree's Baby (Kate Chopin), and that makes me think "abandoned." I don't think of the text itself as being abandoned, but the settings in which the text is set. Thankfully the times have changed because at one point the south could arguably have been the worst place to live; however, coming from that time period has given us incredible texts and styles of writing. Cane's utilization of the modernistic style changed the way people viewed the south and the style of writing in fragments.