There are many basic elements of southern goth in Cable's story Jean Ah Poquelin. First of all, teh setting itself embodies Southern goth taking place in rundown plantation house surrounded by swamp land. It takes place in Louisiana when race is part of the culture. The decay of the house really begins when the two brothers set out on the slave-trade ship. When they return, everything is different. Years later, we see that the new South is confronting the old South of this town by wanting to develop more houses and build a road through Jean's haunted property. Jean is not accepting of these new ways and refuses change, an element of Southern gothic.
The appearance of the supernatural is evidenet, especially from the townspeople point of view. Even the typical stock character of the quiet and wise secretary sees a supposed ghost of Jean's brother. In attempts to expand the town and get rid of the supernatural elements in Jean's house, the town drain his swamp and begin to expand. This is an interesting confrontation because Jean and his house were initially shunned, almost forced into hiding by all of the judgemental, skeptical townspeople. But now he cannot hide any longer as the townspeople need his land, even the land they once shunned. However, within this confrontation, superstition and fear get in the way of the townspeople, and it's hard for them too to accept the new Southern ways. The new Southern ways are in denial of a ghostly presence, yet when they are faced with the confrontation of Jean, all the towsnpeople ran in fear. So it was interestign to see that not only was Jean not accepting of the new Southern expansions, but the actual proponents of the new South couldn't let go of their old Southern folktales/ghost stories and superstition in order to talk to Jean on his property.
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One of the elements of Southern Gothic that stood out to me in Jean-ah Poquelin was "struggling to make sense of a world that has moved on without them (southern gothic ppt)." Jean came back and the town had moved on. All of the sudden he was going to lose some of his land and the way of dealing with it that Jean was used to wasn't going to work. Confronting the Governor didn't help him at all, when in the past his problem could have been solved. Another element of southern gothic is that they never portray a former slave as content. Although the african mute is still a slave, his character only seems to be behind the scenes with no point of view, content or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying, the description of the decaying house surrounded by swamps on every side give it that southern gothic feeling. The supernatural feeling is thrown in by the townspeople being afraid of Poquelin and the "white ghost" that walks around the land. They believe building a road will get rid of the ghost but it only makes Poquelin even more mad.
ReplyDeleteI thought the plantation home was a great fit for the "old haunted mansion". I thought it was interesting that at first it was the Creoles against the white people and then it turned out that the Creoles are the ones who killed Jean Paquelin. I also think it's interesting that just because the towns people never saw Jaques that they assumed Jean killed him or he did something bad. I liked the little White actually stood up for Jean.
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