Warm-up In a COHERENT paragraph, describe how and/why AMERICAN LITERATURE reflects the events, values, fears, and heroes of a particular era in AMERICA HISTORY.

REGIONALISM and REALISM Prose

WHAT SHAPES AMERICAN SOCIETY FROM ? IMMIGRATION MANIFEST DESTINY WESTWARD EXPANSION CIVIL WAR ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN RECONSTRUCTION GROWING MIDDLE CLASS POVERTY INDUSTRIALIZATION DROUGHT GROWTH OF THE CITIES GOLD RUSH SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY THEODORE ROOSEVELT INCREASING LITERACY RAILROAD TECHNOLOGY AUTOMOBILE PRE-WORLD WAR I SPANISH AMERICAN WAR SINKING OF TITANICSINKING OF THE LUISITANIA INVENTION OF AIRPLANEMONROE DOCTRINE WOW! THAT JUST NAMES A FEW….

IMPORTANT ISSUES IN LITERATURE  THE AMERICAN DREAM vs THE REALITY  LOSS AND REDEMPTION  SEARCHING FOR HEROES  A LOST GENERATION  PRESERVING THE PAST  THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE  CREATING OUR FUTURE  FINDING THE INNER VOICE  DEFINING AMERICAN

THANKS GO TO POE, TWAIN, COOPER, AND THE REST….  POE—THE SHORTER SHORT STORY  TWAIN—REGIONALISM, HUMOR, SATIRE  COOPER (that’s JAMES FENIMORE to you!!)—AMERICAN HERO, REGIONALISM, ADVENTURE

REGIONALISM WHAT IS REGIONALISM? REGIONALISM REFERS TO ART— SPECIFICALLY LITERATURE—THAT REFLECTS THE CULTURE, GEOGRAPHIC, AND CLIMATOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AREA IN WHICH THE LITERATURE IS CREATED.

IN OTHER WORDS... IF A STORY IS SET IN THE SOUTH, THE READER WILL KNOW THE TALE TAKES PLACE IN THE SOUTH BECAUSE THE PLACES HAVE SOUTHERN NAMES 2. THE PEOPLE TALK LIKE SOUTH- ERNERS 3. THE ISSUES ARE SOUTHERN ISSUES

IN OTHER WORDS….  IF A STORY IS SET IN NEW YORK CITY, THE READER WILL KNOW THE TALE TAKES PLACE IN THE NORTH BECAUSE THE PLACES HAVE NORTHERN NAMES 2. THE PEOPLE TALK LIKE YANKEES- NEW YORKERS 3. THE ISSUES ARE CITY OR NEW YORK ISSUES

LOCAL COLOR Term applied to fiction or verse which emphasizes its setting, being concerned with the character of a district or of an era, as marked by its customs, dialect, costumes, landscape, or other peculiarities that have escaped standardizing cultural influences.

REGIONALISM A trend became dominant 1860s and early 1870s. Regional literature has demonstrates such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native. Local colorists concerned them with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. Their ultimate aim is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside.

Are there regional differences in the U.S.?  Southern Literature  New Jersey Accent  Midwestern Art  California “sun”  Chicago Pizza  Country Music  City Living

KEY REGIONALISTS  Mark Twain  William Dean Howells  Henry James  Edgar Lee Masters

Local Color Mark Twain is known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. So the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi valley and the west became his major theme. His use of local color and historical setting to illuminate contemporary society has served a creative inspiration for generations of writers to come.

Other Early Regionalists 1 Bret Harte (1836—1902) 布雷特. 哈特Bret Harte 2 Hamlin Garland (1860—1940) 哈姆兰. 加林Hamlin Garland 3 Edward EgglestonEdward Eggleston 4 Harriet Beecher StoweHarriet Beecher Stowe (1811—1896) 哈丽特. 比彻. 斯托夫人 5 Sarah Orne JewettSarah Orne Jewett (1849—1909) 萨拉. 奥妮. 朱厄特 6 Joel Chandler HarrisJoel Chandler Harris (1848—1908) 乔尔. 查德勒. 哈里斯 7 Kate Chopin (1851—1904) 凯特. 肖邦Kate Chopin

WILLIAM FAULKNER William Faulkner( )was born in New Albany,Mississippi. He attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford before and after his service in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World I. His literary career began in New Orleans where he met Sherwood Anderson, who helped him get his first novel Soldier’s Pay published in The work which won Faulkner a Nobel Prize in 1950 is often a depiction of life in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, an imaginative reconstruction of the area adjacent to Oxford.

Major Works  His major novels :  The Sound and the Fury(1929)  As I Lay Dying(1930)  Sanctuary(1931)  Light in August(1932)  Absalom, Absalom !(1936)  The Hamlet(1940)  His books of short stories:  These Thirteen (1931)  Go down, Moses(1942)  The Collected Stories of William Fanlkner(1950)

A ROSE FOR EMILY “A Rose for Emily” is one of Faulkner’s most widely read in the American classroom. Many students may find Faulkner’s story difficult to understand and appreciate because the story is not told in chronological order. Some readers may think it is a bizarre story about an old eccentric lady in an American Southern town. It is true that the setting of the story is the American South. Yet, the theme of the story is universal, transcending the boundaries of time and space. Like many other works of great literature, this short story tells about love, death, honor, pride, change, and loss.

A ROSE FOR EMILY  The story is set in the southern town of Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County (Mississippi)  Emily Grierson is the protagonist. Dominated by her aristocratic father, she has been prevented from marrying and after his death she is left alone and penniless.  One of the themes of this story is the relation of the individual and his/her actions to the past, present and future.  In addition, Faulkner uses stream of consciousness.

Meaning of the Title The meaning of the title is ambiguous, capable of various interpretations. 1. A rose is a cliché, symbolizing love and a pledge of faithfulness. From the story we can see Miss Emily was denied love. So, in this sense, the title has an ironic meaning. 2. A rose for somebody can also mean a kind of memorial, an offering, in memory of somebody. 3. Also, make note of the name and depiction of Miss Emily. Does Faulkner’s Miss Emily remind you of another famous EMILY?

Emily Dickinson  Faulkner picked the name Emily on purpose….

Literary Devices  Flashback and foreshadowing are two often used literary devices that utilize time in order to produce a desired effect. Flashbacks are used to present action that occurs before the beginning of a story; foreshadowing creates expectation for action that has not yet happened. Faulkner uses both devices in ‘‘A Rose for Emily.’’  Irony  Symbolism

Meaning of Tale The plot of the story evolves around many conflicts: 1. the conflicts between Mr. Grierson and his daughter, 2. the conflict between Miss Emily and Homer Barron, 3. the conflict between Miss Emily and the community, 4. the conflict between the South and the North, 5. the conflict between Miss Emily and the established codes of conduct, 6. and the conflict between the past and the present.

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