Southern Ontario Gothic is a

subgenre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a Category of being, category of literature, ...

of the

Gothic novel Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...

genre and a feature of

Canadian literature Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both ge ...

that comes from

Southern Ontario Southern Ontario is a primary region of the province of Ontario, Canada, the other primary region being Northern Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada. The exact northern boundary of Southern Ontario is disp ...

. This region includes

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Southern Ontario's major industrial cities (

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilt ...

, Kitchener, St. Thomas,

Oshawa Oshawa ( , also ; 2021 population 175,383; CMA 415,311) is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario, approximately east of Downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of the G ...

, St. Catharines), and the surrounding countryside. While the genre may also feature other areas of Ontario, Canada, and the world as narrative locales, this region provides the core settings.

Overview

The term was first used in

Graeme Gibson Thomas Graeme Cameron Gibson (9 August 1934 – 18 September 2019) was a Canadian novelist.''The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature''. 1997. Don Mills: Oxford University Press Canada, p.1085. In an interview with

Timothy Findley Timothy Irving Frederick Findley Timothy Findley's
entry in

The Last of the Crazy People'' shared similarities with the American

Southern Gothic Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing or ...

genre, to which Findley replied, "...sure, it's Southern Gothic: Southern ''Ontario'' Gothic." Notable writers of this subgenre include

Alice Munro Alice Ann Munro (; ; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move f ...

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nin ...

Robertson Davies William Robertson Davies (28 August 1913 – 2 December 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished " men of letters" ...

Jane Urquhart Jane Urquhart, LL.D (born June 21, 1949) is a Canadian novelist and poet. She is the internationally acclaimed author of seven award-winning novels, three books of poetry and numerous short stories. As a novelist, Urquhart is well known for her e ...

Marian Engel Marian Ruth Engel (née Passmore; May 24, 1933 – February 16, 1985) was a Canadian novelist and a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada. Her most famous and controversial novel was '' Bear'' (1976), a tale of erotic love between an a ...

James Reaney James Crerar Reaney, (September 1, 1926 – June 11, 2008) was a Canadian poet, playwright, librettist, and professor, "whose works transform small-town Ontario life into the realm of dream and symbol." Reaney won Canada's highest literary a ...

and

Barbara Gowdy Barbara Gowdy, CM (born 25 June 1950) is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she is the long-time partner of poet Christopher Dewdney and resides in Toronto. Literary career Gowdy's novel '' Falling Angels'' ...

Characteristics

Like the Southern Gothic of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

writers such as

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

Flannery O'Connor Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often ...

and

Eudora Welty Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel ''The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numero ...

, Southern Ontario Gothic analyzes and critiques

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

conditions such as race, gender, religion and politics, but in a Southern Ontario context. Southern Ontario Gothic is generally characterized by a stern

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

set against the dour small-town

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

morality stereotypical of the region, and often has underlying themes of moral hypocrisy. Actions and people that act against humanity, logic, and morality all are portrayed unfavourably, and one or more characters may be suffering from some form of

mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

. In a review of Alice Munro's '' Dear Life'' for ''

Quill & Quire ''Quill & Quire'' is a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry. The magazine was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, with a publisher-claimed readership of 25,000. ''Quill & Quire'' reviews ...

'', literary critic James Grainger writes that "Violence, illness, and reputations ruined by a single indiscretion are accepted in Munro’s secretive, repressed communities as a kind of levelling mechanism, rough justice for those who dare to strive for something finer." The Gothic novel has traditionally examined the role of evil in the human soul, and has incorporated dark or horrific imagery to create the desired setting. Some (but not all) writers of Southern Ontario Gothic use

supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...

or magic realist elements; a few deviate from realism entirely, in the manner of the fantastical gothic novel. Virtually all dwell to a certain extent upon the

grotesque Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...

. Often, these elements are combined to highlight themes present in the wider canon of

. An overarching sense of displacement either socially, physically or psychologically often sets the stage for supernatural elements, transgressive behavior or inner turmoil. Accompanying displacement is a nightmarish feeling of spiritual imprisonment in a Southern Ontario setting that is characterized by an eroding societal value system and an atmosphere that stifles and fears individual means of expression. Many sources of terror and horror are created when a character tries to break free of the strictures of established norms within these communities. This lends itself to a motif of 'Canadian' survival that is applied to scenarios dependent on enduring abstract horrors which originate from within a character who is often living in a small village, town or city of the region. In a review of Cynthia Sugars' book ''Canadian Gothic: Literature, History and the Spectre of Self-Invention'', Amy Ransom claims that Southern Ontario Gothic seeks to tell the stories of generations of settlers in a way that uses elements of the taboo, the surreal and the fantastical to form a new common identity in a

postcolonial Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...

world. For example, the family of prolific Southern Ontario Gothic author, Alice Munro, originally settled on

Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...

lands which were a basis of many of her shorter works.

Notable works

Notable works of the genre include Davies' ''

Deptford Trilogy ''The Deptford Trilogy'' (published 1970 to 1975) is a series of inter-related novels by Canadian novelist Robertson Davies. Overview The trilogy consists of ''Fifth Business'' (1970), ''The Manticore'' (1972), and '' World of Wonders'' (1975). ...

'', Findley's ''

Headhunter Headhunter or head hunter may refer to: * Headhunting, hunting a human and collecting the severed head after killing them * Executive search, informally called headhunting, a specialized recruitment service Arts and entertainment Film and telev ...

'', Atwood's ''

Alias Grace ''Alias Grace'' is a historical fiction novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. First published in 1996 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Canadian Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The story fictionalizes the notoriou ...

'' and ''

The Blind Assassin ''The Blind Assassin'' is a novel by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2000. The book is set in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga and in Toronto. It is narrated from the present ...

'', and Munro's ''Selected Stories''.

Criticism

Writer David Ingham describes Southern Ontario Gothic as having "little or nothing to distinguish it from everyday, garden-variety type realism."Ingham, David
"Bashing the Fascists: The Moral Dimensions of Findley's Fiction"
''Studies in Canadian Literature.'' Retrieved on December 3, 2007.

References

{{Fantasy fiction Canadian literary movements Horror genres Gothic fiction * Postcolonial literature

Overview

Characteristics

Notable works

Criticism

See also

References