One of the finest American modernist writers, Flannery O'Connor was probably the best known author of Southern Gothic stories. Her works fit the scheme of the Southern Gothic literature, which, unlike the Romantic Gothic literature that utilizes the supernatural, focuses on the sublime and grotesque found in reality. In her stories, the sublime is represented by the spiritual side of life, while the grotesque is symbolized by technique, material progress and disintegration of values; however, …showed first 75 words of 1431 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1431 total…Old Testament prophet with her piercing eyes and her uncompromising message. It can be seen that the grotesque and the gothic were used by Flannery O'Connor to show the decay of values and uncontrolled expansion of technology in the modern world. The vivid imagery used in O'Connor's stories leaves the reader thinking about the condition of the modern world - especially the American South, which seems to be a very dark and grotesque place itself.