The Common Theme Of Punishment In African-American Gothic Literature

African-Americans have been treated unfairly in the past, they were forced into obedience by white people and have suffered in various ways because of their skin colour. Lynching was a common form of punishment; usually by being hung in public as spectators watched. African-Americans did not deserve to be punished, but were often susceptible to unfair treatment. They were ridiculed and seen as property rather than human. Young people of colour grew up witnessing this unfair treatment, losing their innocence and ignorance of inequality as a result. Southern American gothic literature looks at the older South, prior to the civil war with plantation and slavery. After the defeat of the South, there was reconstruction going on with the abolition
The temporal setting of end of summer, a period of harvest and natural setting of the large forest are both common settings in gothic literature. Walker describes Myop’s familiarity of the forest as a source of childhood memories “[a]round the spring, where the family got drinking water, silver ferns and wildflowers grew… Often in late autumn, her mother took her to gather nuts among the fallen leaves” (Walker 298-299); visiting the forest is habitual to Myop. Estrangement is a convention of gothic literature, it takes a familiar natural landscape and suddenly estranges Myop from its familiarity. There is tension as Myop moves further into the forest than
Myop’s innocence comes from her lack of awareness of the old South and the treatment of people of colour. She is only ten years-old so her world is closed and limited to her own views; she is only aware of the happiness that life brings, “[s]he felt light and good in the warm sun” (Walker 299), unacquainted with the past treatment towards people of colour, “[s]he was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment” (Walker 298). She is initially curious about the body, but as she investigates the cause of death, her view of the forest shifts “[i]t was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now blending benignly into the soil” (Walker 299). Her innocence is shifted in to awareness with the discovery of the cause of death; this realization of a harsh reality is relevant to her as an African-American. Myop’s recognition of lynching creates a sense of fear and anxiety as she connects the cause of death to her family history, “[a]round an overhanging limb of great spreading oak clung another piece. Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled—barely there—but spinning restlessly in the breeze” (Walker 299). The gothic convention fear of life rather than death is used as Myop becomes fearful of the past because of her skin colour; she begins to comprehend the horrific American past and how it relates to her skin