Date of Award
Spring 4-27-2024
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Professional Writing
Department
English
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Erin Bahl
Second Advisor
Garrard Conley
Abstract
There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.
Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By examining traditional ghost stories local to Georgia, this study seeks to answer those questions.
Included in
American Literature Commons, Cultural History Commons, Folklore Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Nonfiction Commons