Jean-Ah Poquelin

Consider and write about the changing South. In what ways does it change? Is there resistance? How does the subject of change influence the narrative. How is this story Southern Gothic. Do you see any of the Southern Gothic troupes. (PPT is in eCollege)

There always has to be at least one source of decay in a story, and in this story it is the plantation and pretty much everything surrounding it is decaying. Also, in this story, there is an introduction of wild animals, which is something I haven't seen or noticed in the other short stories and novels we've read. On the first page, you see that the "...shallow strips of water were hid by myriads of aquatic plants, under whose coarse and spiritless flowers, could one have seen it, was a harbour of reptiles, great and small, to make on shudder to the end of his days." The mention of animals great and small works on the readers mind because they don't tell you how big the animal is when he's "great". Also, the house of being "...the object of superstitions" is also another gothic element that is used, along with classifying the main character as being "...a symbol of witchery, devilish crime, and hideous nursery fictions..." when he didn't come back with his half-brother. There is resistance to change when the main character does NOT want a street built in front of his property. It starts on page 170 when the main character goes to the governor and says "...Strit can't pass dare" and goes on many many times to put his foot down and telling the people that he does NOT want a street built around his property and he does NOT want anymore people moving in around where he lives. This resistance is brought about because he probably does not feel comfortable with having others living around him, or that he doesn't trust anyone else, or maybe because he just wants to be alone. Throughout the story, you are used to reading about how the main character's house is falling apart and how he is lonely and only has an african mute staying with him, but the introduction of new blood in the story somewhat excites me because I thought that maybe he would come out of his shell, but then I was also worried because I wasn't too sure how the children would treat him, since they are always up to no good. There seems to be more action and more characters talking when the change happens and you get a little bit more of a sotry out of the story you are reading and it just makes it a little bit more interesting to see how other people act and react to the main character. I consider this story souther gothic because there is of course the decaying plantation, there is somewhat of a hero ( Mr. White ), there is the element of terror and mystery, and there are "ghosts" in the story. No one is ever really able to state whether or not it is a ghosts and since we never get to read the story from the main character's perspective we never know for sure if that really is his half-brother's ghost. What exactly did happen to Jacques?