Ellen Glasgow's Gothicism

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Virginia Gunn Fick (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Donald Darnell

Abstract: A close study of Ellen Glasgow's work reveals a clear, if uneven, strain of Gothicism running throughout. It begins in her poems as the use of macabre imagery and the concern with Evil and in her short stories as psychological and supernatural inquiry. From these bits and pieces the Gothicism evolves in her novels into a persistent theme — that Evil is in Nature and Nature is sovereign over man — a theme appropriately reinforced by Gothic motifs. Chapter I shows that although the Gothic quality in Ellen Glasgow's writing was largely ignored by the critics and never acknowledged by Glasgow herself, it nevertheless grew naturally out of her affinities with other Gothic writers, her cultural milieu, and her own temperament and life experiences. In Chapter II an examination of one large group of Glasgow's poems reveals how she used the imagery of death to arouse feeling and how she was beginning to work toward her definition of Evil. A group of five short stories likewise shows an interest in Evil and a developing probe into the nature of the inner man. Chapter III exposes the pattern of Gothic theme supported by Gothic elements that exists in thirteen selected novels. The sovereignty of Nature is expressed through the erupting passions of lust, rage, and revenge, as well as through the natural forces of darkness, death, and decay. Moreover, out of this main theme three prominent sub-themes emerge: aristocratic debility, the effect of soil upon soul, and the influence of the past. These themes are accompanied by a full assortment of traditional Gothic elements. Together they construct the Gothicism which must be considered a salient characteristic of Ellen Glasgow's literary style.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 1973
Subjects
Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson, $d 1873-1945 $x Criticism and interpretation
Gothic literature
Supernatural in literature

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