Essential Questions For This Unit

1.An example of optimism is "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and it is reflected in the differences and wide ranges of stories in the genre, which reflects the individualism.
2.Romanticism is like individualism. it has four main values: Love, beauty, truth and freedom. it's about nature, human nature, and reason. Gothic romanticism is scary, mysterious, dark, creepy, and strange. Southern Gothic Romanticism is like Gothic Romanticism but it focuses on the american south. It has a strange character known as the "Grotesque". Then it has the hero character and something in the town that is run down or falling apart.
5.The writings of these time periods influence the writings of today because they had the ability to veer from the writings of their time period and make new genres and that led us to make our own new genres

Romanticism: What is it? "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot"

This story captures the imagination of readers because it has mystery, rivalry, and scariness.The song is about escaping the physical conditions of slavery because its about the slaves having hope and something to think about other than their hard work. Also it gives them hope. It reflects the time period because it's more soulful and that was the music of the time period.

Gothic Romanticism: Hawthorne, Poe, and baudelair

one thing that supports Madeline being a vampire is that she only appeared dead she may not have been dead, the narrator only saw that she looked dead.  Then she came back at the end of the story and she had been buried for a week without dying so  that supports the vampire thesis. The Gothic fiction writers express their criticism of human nature by showing human's weaknesses like greed (Dr.Heidegger's Experiment), ignorance (Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death).

Southern Gothic Romanticism

Southern Gothic Romanticism is a sub genre of Romanticism. It's focus lies on the American south."A Rose For Emily" shows southern Gothic traits in it's "recluse" figure, Emily and in the deaths in the story. "The Life You save May Be Your  Own"shows southern Gothic traits in it's "grotesque" figure, Mr.Shiflet, a man who has one arm and it's other "grotesque" figure, the daughter who isn't "all there".
I think Miss Emily's crime goes undetected because she lives in a small town where the people only gossiped behind her back, they didn't ask her about anything. Another reason is because everyone just made assumptions about what happened to the people in her life, they didn't  have any factual information. Lastly, they knew people in her family were insane and they called Emily crazy but they never made her get checked or put in an asylum.
I think the episode with the hitchhiker makes the story work because it kind of shows why Shiflet said he wanted an "innocent woman" and made such a big deal about it.