American Realism

1
American Realism

• No More Romantic Sunshine Rainbows

2
Origins/Influences

• 1850/60-1890/1910
• -Began during the Civil War continued into the
  early 20th century
• Reaction to idealism of Romanticism
  Transcendentalism CONTRAST
• - Literary civil war!
• Fertile literary environment
• Rising middle class literacy rates

3
Social/Political Context

• Reaction to Civil War suffering
• Invention of photograph
• Captured true life
• Increased literacy democracy public hungry
  for truth awareness
• Abolitionism post-slavery stories
• Dark side of America
• Origins of Muckraking journalism
• Expose corruption, particularly political
  corporate (continues today)
• Literature affected tried to do the same

4
Realism Values/Beliefs

• Contrasts with Romanticism/Transcendentalism
• Describes life w/out Romantic subjectivity
  idealism
• Romantics transcend the immediate to find the
  ideal Realists focus on the immediate, the here
  now and its consequences
• Present life as it is, not as it might be thus,
  purpose of writing is to instruct entertain
• Multiple views of life all classes, races,
  genders
• Particularly lower/middle classes
• Highlight class stratification/inequity
• Reveal the ugliness and cruelty of life but leave
  conclusions to the reader
• Like Romantics, progressive, but stimulated
  change through telling a story that reveals
  truth, not preaching (OBJECTIVE left readers to
  draw their own conclusions)

5
Literary Conventions

• Characters product of social environmental
  factors
• Often poorly educated or lower class
• Renders reality closely often in minute detail,
  even at the expense of plot
• Settings usually familiar to the writer
• Character more important than plot
• Plausible events avoid sensational, overly
  dramatic elements
• - However, some do explore the psychological
  journey as a form of subjective reality but in a
  negative way
• Usually uses the omniscient point of view

6
Conventions Cont.

• Natural vernacular/speech, not heightened or
  poetic (like the Romantics)
• Written just as spoken
• Tone is comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact
• Considers seemingly ordinary uninteresting
  characters/events in order to extract full value
  true meaning
• Simple stories far more complex than they appear
• Realistically conveyed sexuality, both its dark
  and light sides.

7
Regionalism Psychological Realism

• Regionalism focuses on small geographical area
  in attempt to reproduce speech mannerisms
• Psychological Fiction character perspectiveas
  real as any reality

8
Naturalism

• Branch of Realism
• Philosophical position scientific laws control
  life
• Heavily influenced by Darwinism
• Natural Selection/Survival of the Fittest
• Darker more fatalistic (fatalistic determined
  by fate not choice)
• Lives governed by heredity, instinct, passion
  nature NOT nurture.
• Forces beyond a characters control restrict
  attempts to exercise free will or choice
• More negative than other branches of Realism

• Authors
• Jack London
• Call of the Wild, To Build a Fire
• Stephen Crane
• Maggie Girl of the Street
• Henry James
• Portrait of a Lady, Daisy Miller
• John Steinbeck
• Of Mice Men (debatable)

9
Famous Authors

• Mark Twain
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Stephen Crane
• Red Badge of Courage, The Open Boat, A Mystery
  of Heroism
• Upton Sinclair
• The Jungle
• Frederick Douglass
• - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• William Dean Howells
• Bret Harte
• Rebecca Harding Davis
• Kate Chopin
• Story of an Hour, Desirees Baby, The
  Awakening