The Horror of Memory in the Southern Gothic
Description/Abstract/Artist Statement
Scenes of expansive cotton fields and rotting Manor houses lined by moss covered oaks where strange fruit once hung induce an acute sense of horror from an audience familiar with these relics. The genre of “Southern Gothic” spans literature, film and music and is built on themes of cultural repression in the Southern United States. This tradition explores fears rooted in lingering memories of human enslavement and patriarchal domination. In a culture marked by racial violence and class oppression, evil is, often, identifiable by markers of wealth and white skin. Historical memories only exacerbate suffering. Many contemporary works use the Southern Gothic to explore the psyche of subcultures in the south. Television and film that disintegrates the identity of Southern white “womanhood” exposes the normalization of mental and physical abuse passed matrilineally. Decay becomes a compelling souvenir of the pictorial dialect of Southern Gothic media, creeping along crumbling banisters in abandoned plantation-style mansions. These snapshots reflect the corruption and economic decline of the antebellum South. While narratives of trauma and abuse are widespread, other works focus on how the Black community’s confrontation of historical oppression has led to fostering protection and mutual support. As the specter at the feast, the Southern Gothic taunts the consciousness of Southern society, reminding us: there is no respite from one’s own memory.
The Horror of Memory in the Southern Gothic
Scenes of expansive cotton fields and rotting Manor houses lined by moss covered oaks where strange fruit once hung induce an acute sense of horror from an audience familiar with these relics. The genre of “Southern Gothic” spans literature, film and music and is built on themes of cultural repression in the Southern United States. This tradition explores fears rooted in lingering memories of human enslavement and patriarchal domination. In a culture marked by racial violence and class oppression, evil is, often, identifiable by markers of wealth and white skin. Historical memories only exacerbate suffering. Many contemporary works use the Southern Gothic to explore the psyche of subcultures in the south. Television and film that disintegrates the identity of Southern white “womanhood” exposes the normalization of mental and physical abuse passed matrilineally. Decay becomes a compelling souvenir of the pictorial dialect of Southern Gothic media, creeping along crumbling banisters in abandoned plantation-style mansions. These snapshots reflect the corruption and economic decline of the antebellum South. While narratives of trauma and abuse are widespread, other works focus on how the Black community’s confrontation of historical oppression has led to fostering protection and mutual support. As the specter at the feast, the Southern Gothic taunts the consciousness of Southern society, reminding us: there is no respite from one’s own memory.