Realism, Regionalism, and Naturalism

1
Realism, Regionalism, and Naturalism

• Unit 4 Division, Reconciliation, and Expansion
  (1850-1914)

2
The Industrial Revolution

• Americans began to leave their rural homes and
  frontier life for urban cities and factory jobs
• Northerners thrived on commerce, cheap
  transportation, and bustling activities such as
  education, banking, science, and reform

3
DIVISION

• Southerners was defined by plantations and crops
  (sugar, rice, and tobacco)
• Disagreement between N/S over slavery not new,
  however, Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 inflamed the
  division
• Harpers Ferry in 1859 intensified the strife as
  John Brown was executed for treason

4
Division Escalated as . . .

• The Union was dissolved
• The West was expanded
• The Frontier disappeared

5
Talk to Me

• What additional information can you add to the
  idea that the North and South were divided or the
  effects of Industrialization?

6
Rags to Riches

• Every man was a potential Andrew Carnegie, yet
• Trappings of American life electricity,
  telephones, automobiles, motion pictures, and
  phonographs.
• Then there was mass production, skyscrapers,
  department stores, air pollution, crime, and
  slums
• Immigration fueled urban growth and cheap labor
• New extremes of wealth and poverty

7
Criticisms of America

• When French prime minister Georges Clemenceau
  visited, he said the nation had gone from a stage
  of barbarism to one of decadence -- without
  achieving any civilization between the two.
• Although, America had money and factories, it
  lacked sophistication.

8
Hence, the Gilded Age and Muckrackers were born

• "What is the chief end of man?--to get rich. In
  what way?--dishonestly if we can honestly if we
  must." -- Mark
  Twain-1871

• The Gilded Age implies a thin veneer of glitter
  over something of poor quality.
• President Rooseve.t coined term Muckrackers as
  he accused journalists looking only downward as
  they stir filth and not seeing heavenly crown
  above

9
Literature of the Period

• Literary Civil War waged between Romantics,
  Realists, and Naturalists
• HOW should fictional characters be presented in
  relation to external forces?

10
Perceptions of the Individual

• Romantics (Emerson and Longfellow) viewed humans
  as a god who triumph over adversity
• Realists (Twain and Chopin) viewed humans simply
  people with limited ability who can only react to
  outside forces
• Naturalists ( Crane and London) viewed humans as
  helpless objects of determinism

11
Realism in Literature

• Realism depicted realistic details of ordinary
  people (speech, dress, and behavior), loneliness,
  cultural isolation, and customs
• Writing from this period was presented as
  slice of life

12
Characteristics of Realism

• CHARACTERS
• are more important than action and plot
• make complex ethical choices
• attempt to control their destinies rather then
  simply react

13

• What information have you learned in history that
  could have influenced the realist writers?

14
PLOT

• emphasizes verisimilitude, even at the expense of
  a well-made plot.
• avoids the sensational, dramatic elements of
  romanticism.
• Focuses on the lives of ordinary people rejected
  heroic and adventurous
• Anti-materialism rejected new class system
• Found meaning in the common place
• Stressed the actual as opposed to the imagined
• Literature from this period has been criticized
  as crude, base, and unimaginative

15
Popular Fiction

• Slave Voices
• Wartime voices
• Frontier Voices

16
African American Experience

• Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin was the
  1st book to sell 1 million copies
• Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, published
  The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
  indicts slavery
• Sojourner Truths Aint I a Woman and Narrative
  of Sojourner Truth
• Paul Laurence Dunbars We Wear the Mask
• W.E.B. Duboiss The Souls of Black Folk

17
Wartime Experience

• Depicted in journals, diaries, speeches, and
  short stories
• Stephen Crane
• Red Badge of Courage- most famous Civil War
  novel
• An Episode of War and War is Kind
• Mary Chestnut journals from Dixie
• Chief Josephs I Will Fight No More

18
Frontier Experience

• Depicted in journals, short stories, novels and
  poems
• Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) one of the greatest
  American novelists.humorists
• -Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
  County
• -Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• -Adventures of Huckleberry
• Willa Cather O Pioneers!
• Famous for using vernacular, exaggeration, and
  humor

19
Regionalism

• Mass production and streamlined distribution
  caused people to fear that local folkways and
  traditions would be forgotten
• So, regional writers rushed to capture the
  local color by showing the breakdown of
  traditional values and growing plight of the
  urban poor

20
Characteristics of Regionalism

• Uses regional dialect
• Uses vivid description of the landscape
• Uses local color to highlight characteristics and
  details unique to a specific area
• Captures physical environment
• Captures mood of the time and place
• Depicts the ways in which people talk and how
  they think.

21
Regionalists

• Mark Twain best known example
• Bret Harte (1836-1902)
• - Outcasts of Poker Flat
• Kate Chopin (1851-1904)
• -The Awakening
• Story of an Hour
• Willa Cather (1873-1947)
• - A Wagner Matinee
• - won Pulitzer Prize

22
Naturalism

• A offshoot of Realism
• Depicts real people in real situations
• BUT fate, heredity, environment, physical drives,
  and economic circumstances decide ones destiny
• So, despite aims to change a specific social
  problem, nature always wins
• Hence, people have no control over events or
  lives.
• And, life is a losing battle against an uncaring
  universe
• Freewill is an illusion

23
Naturalism - Concepts

• The naturalist writerdissects human
  behaviorobjectively like a scientist.
• The characters have limited choices and
  motivations and live by instinct.
• Dominant themes survival, fate, violence,
  nature as an indifferent force

24
Thinking About Home

• Create a storyline in which a naturalist includes
  regionalism and local color in one work?

25
Naturalist Writers

• Jack London
• Call of the Wild (tame dog forced to revert to
  his original primitive state)
• To Build a Fire (survival of the fittest)

26
CP Comprehension Check

• 1. What American writers responded to the Civil
  War?
• 2. What were drawbacks to Americans
  industrialization and expansion?
• 3. What are the basic characteristics of Realism?
• 4. What event turned American writers toward
  Regionalism? Why?
• 5. What did Naturalists attempt to do?
• 6. In your opinion, which literary movement seems
  more interesting Romanticism or Realism? Why?

27
Gifted Comprehension Check

• The shift from Romanticism to Realism brought
  about new literary forms, new styles, and most
  important, new attitudes in writers and readers.
  Write a brief essay in which you compare and
  contrast the basic attitudes and beliefs of the
  Romantic writers with those of the realist
  writers. Consider, for example, the writers
  subjects, characters, and attitudes towards human
  nature and their views on the purpose of
  literature.

28
Works Cited

• Artwork of Cassett retrieved from
  http//www.artlex.com/ArtLex/ij/impressionism.Cass
  att.html
• Penrose, Patricia. American Realism. American
  Collection. http//ncteamericancollection.org/amer
  _realism.htm
• Center for Civil War Photography.
  http//www.civilwarphotography.org/index.html