'Am I Making You Feel Sick?': Ethel Cain's Preacher's Daughter and the Southern Gothic

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to demonstrate the ways in which singer-songwriter Ethel Cain’s 2022 album Preacher’s Daughter is a Southern Gothic work. The first step of the methodology was the exploration of the roots of the Gothic literary genre, with discussions of prevalent themes and motifs within its tradition. These include the fear of death, ghostly apparitions, haunting vistas of sparse moors and old manors. Next, this thesis explored the cultural and thematic context of the Southern Gothic genre, relating those to the wider Gothic canon and to the works of prior authors. The influences of writers like Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor and Toni Morrison were discussed. Finally, analysis of selected quotes from eight songs on Preacher’s Daughter was conducted, where they were discussed through the lenses of religion, family, past trauma, the grotesque and the macabre. The songs analyzed were “American Teenager”, “Sun Bleached Flies”, “Thoroughfare”, “Family Tree (Intro)”, “Ptolemaea”, “Hard Times”, “Gibson Girl”, and “Strangers”. The investigation revealed the systemic utilization of Southern Gothic themes and motifs within the narrative and lyricism of the album, cementing the work as belonging to the Southern Gothic genre.