As with the supernatural, a novel just wouldn't be Southern Gothic if it doesn't have a few deaths in it. And Other Voices, Other Rooms is chock full of mortality.
From Joel's mother to the servants at Skully's Landing, where he has to go live, everyone seems to be dancing with death. It gives the novel a sense of decadence, as though everything were decaying, rotting, and dying off. There's no future when everything is dead, and that is an effect of the prominence of this theme: there isn't much hope for Joel's future.
Questions About Mortality
- Joel imagines that his father might be dead because he doesn't see him at first when he arrives at the Landing. How would things be different if his father were dead?
- What do you think about Jesus Fever's funeral?
- Why did Jesus Fever's wife hang herself?
- Why do you think that Joel lies about his mother dying in the snow?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
In Other Voices, Other Rooms, death is presented as a natural part of life.
In Other Voices, Other Rooms, death is a terrifying thought.