The Origin of Southern Literature Essay Example

essentials regarding their writing as well as many queries concerning the society they represented. For instance, Poe’s short stories normally focus on death, but he tells the story of death with a dark humor besides a desire to depict the intricacy of his characters and society (Fulton 296).

Characteristics of the Southern Literature

Southern literature commonly referred to as the literature of the American South concerns the authors of the Southern United States since they had their own way of presenting their stories to the public. There are some characteristics of the Southern literature which consist of the essence of family, the prominence of the society, the manipulation of the two and a focus on the history of the southern (Bassett 155). Moreover, the region’s dominant religion plays a very significant role in southern literature. In many literature works, the advantages as well as disadvantages the religion brings to the society are frequently discussed. The real ideas of the southern literature were to expose the problems faced by the society but it does so through developing intricate characters. The authors explored the actions of people and the social order of the southern region of America. Although the stories developed by the authors hoped to reveal that the social order was delicate, the certainties behind it were truly disturbing. The authors’ point of view was to set out the truth about the southern culture as well as its moral weaknesses (Blanco 28).

Why the Southern Literature differs regionally from other genres found in the United States

A lot of what is known about southern literature was written in the years of 1830s and 1960s (Taylor et al., 789). All through

this time in history, the people of the Southern part wanted to separate themselves from the Northern people and that is why they chose to entirely write something different to define their uniqueness. The authors of the south unlike other writers correspondingly defined themselves against the North. This was because of the ideology of industrial capitalism and anti-slavery that faced the South and not the North. Unlike other genres in the United States, the essential aspects of the Southern author’s culture and tradition were of colorful storytelling as well as literature (Bassett 157). The common themes employed by the southern authors that are not common in the other genres consist of great accent, sensible characters, and considerable family correlations.

The authors also had a sense of background as well as an exceptional way of life that was worth writing unlike the other genres which write of anything that is happening currently in the society. The stories developed by the authors in the south had a unique setting such as in plantations, broken downtowns or old slave quarters. Some of the elements involved in the stories of the southern literature involve dialect, characters and habits. The deep history of the people of the South is signified in the scenery of the stories. Unlike the character traits portrayed in the other genres, the southern literature stories used intricate characters whereby many of them were mentally unstable (Blanco 22).

A great number of the characters used are broken in spirit besides struggling to get a place in the community. The authors keenly examine the destruction that people can do to each other in the society. The plots of many books

written by the southern authors are very disturbing since some of them involve paranormal elements. Moreover, they frequently contain ironic occasions as a writing style and the stories are mostly related to racism, poverty and violence that affect the society. Other factors influencing the southern literature involved slavery, war, segregation, and revolution in culture (Bassett, 161).

The elements used in the southern writing style such as dialect are not used in other genres since it is regarded as patronizing to the race or traditions being revealed. The style also incorporated local speech and symbols such as “aint’t,y’all” (Perry and Weaks-Baxter 143). It mostly comprised of misspelling of words to present the meaning of the content written. Some of the books written in dialect style include Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and The Color Purple.

The common themes used in the southern literature included chivalry and values and morals (Taylor et al. 720). The theme of chivalry replicated on the southern culture and traditions where women were handled with respect and termed as fragile flowers. It is through this utopian romanticism that the best romance books from America were written by the southern writers. The theme of values and morals in the southern literature was developed because of the powerful Christian control of the firm Baptist Church.

In conclusion, there are many popular southern writers whereby every individual had diverse life experiences. This is the main reason as to why each of them wrote and incorporated varying themes. The themes used by the authors differ from diverse readers but the most common ones included in the southern works are prejudice, standing for ones beliefs, and injustice.

Work cited

1. Bassett, John E.
   

Defining Southern Literature: Perspectives and Assessments, 1831-1952.