In the articles A Peculiarly Southern Form of Ugliness:Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers,and Flannery O’Connor, the author talks about the setting in A Good Man is Hard to find and how it ultimately leads the family to their death. Another way that we can see how the setting plays a role in Southern Gothic literature is in A Good Man is Hard to Find.
![southern gothic literature definition southern gothic literature definition](https://study.com/cimages/videopreview/videopreview-small/gothic-fiction-definition-characteristics-authors_v2_117558.jpg)
Faulkner was a classic part of the Southern Gothic genre, and really threw all of himself into his work. William Faulkner literally put himself in his own stories when, “He bought a decrepit antebellum house in Oxford, which plunged him further into debt but in which he would find comfort and pleasure for the rest of his life” (Blotner et al). Even the writers of the stories immersed themselves into the same type of environments that they were writing about. Having this beautiful house all rundown and in a bad part of town is one of the elements that adds to the darkness of the overall story, and is definitely one of the elements that makes this story part of the Southern Gothic genre. The house is the picture-perfect southern mansion, except for the fact that it is run down and outdated, and where this house used to be in the best part of town, it is now in the slums.
![southern gothic literature definition southern gothic literature definition](https://image1.slideserve.com/2325827/why-is-it-called-gothic-l.jpg)
In William Faulkner’s story A Rose for Emily, the house is a classic southern house, and that is shown when Faulkner writes “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street” (Faulkner 1).
![southern gothic literature definition southern gothic literature definition](https://image1.slideserve.com/1966892/gothic-literature-l.jpg)
The houses are mansions and they are meant to make a big statement and draw attention to them.