THE RISE OF AMERICAN REALISM Or THE BRUTAL, GRAPHIC, BLOOD SPURTING, AGONIZING DEATH OF ROMANTICISM

WHEN DID REALISM BEGIN? April 12, 1861 Confederate forces open fire on Union Forces at Fort Sumter in South Carolina This event, combined with building political tension, was the beginning of the Civil War This began one of the bloodiest chapters in American history  

THE CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 The American people held opposing viewpoints on the war IDEALISM Personified by Walt Whitman His work in the field hospitals and visiting wounded soldiers gave him a sense of optimism and patriotism

THE CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 PESSIMISM Personified by Herman Melville His visits to the battlefields exposed the futility and horrors of war-saw humanity’s basic evil

LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA No true literature of this period was produced Most of the accounts of the war came from newspaper articles and soldiers accounts

LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA America’s greatest writers either chose not to write (Emerson) died (Thoreau)

LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA were occupied with other endeavors (Holmes and Bryant) The younger generation of writers was abroad (Howells and James)

LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA Most notable was that the form of literature best able to handle such strong material had not been developed Photographers such as Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner brought the horrors of war to many people through the images they captured

THE RISE OF REALISM Out of the horrors of the Civil War came a negative reaction to the atrocities of war People became disillusioned with the exploits of larger than life heroes and happy endings that had been popular during the era of Romanticism Realists focused more on the common course of ordinary life

THE RISE OF REALISM Subjects were drawn from the slums, factories, and lives of far from idealized characters: factory workers corrupt politicians even prostitutes

THE RISE OF REALISM Biology psychology sociology Realists wanted to portray why ordinary people behave the way they do They wanted to portray life without filtering it through personal feelings, romanticism, or idealism Realistic novelists often relied on the emerging sciences of human and animal behavior Biology psychology sociology

THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN REALISM Realism had its roots in regionalism literature that emphasizes a specific geographic setting and makes use of the speech and manners of the people who live in that region  Although regional novelists were loyal to the speech and manners of the people they wrote about, they tended to be unrealistic about their depiction of the characters or the social environment

THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN REALISM Mark Twain became one of the first regional writers to embrace the aspects of Realism In Huckleberry Finn, we see the world from Huck’s point of view Huck attempts to decipher the world around him Twain uses Huck to explode social conventions and the hypocrisy of “civilized” society

REALISM AND NATURALISM Following the lead of European novelist Emile Zola, authors such as Frank Norris turned to psychology and sociology as the basis of their characters These Naturalists attempted to dissect human behavior with objectivity They felt that human behavior was determined by forces beyond the individual’s power

REALISM AND NATURALISM They saw human life as a losing battle where the characters have limited choices and motivations and are totally subject to the natural laws of the universe, and like animals, live crudely by instinct, unable to control their own destinies

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL Authors such as Henry James concentrated principally on fine distinctions of character motivation James often set his novels in Europe, which he considered to be more sinister than America His characters were eager, young Americans who confronted the complexities of European society, and either defeat or are defeated by them

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL Stephen Crane was also a profound psychologist, but he chose to focus on his character at moments of stress Crane chose the battlefield, the slums, and even a lifeboat lost at sea as the place to test human behavior under pressure Crane was also considered an Ironist by juxtaposing human pretensions with the indifference of the universe This helped pave the way for modern writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Kurt Vonnegut

CHARACTERISTICS OF REALISM Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail, even at the expense of a well made plot Character is more important than action or plot complex ethical choices are often the subject Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive

CHARACTERISTICS OF REALISM Class is important; generally tend to focus on the insurgent middle class Events will be plausible and will avoid the sensational Diction is natural vernacular and the tone may be comic, satiric or matter-of-fact Objectivity in presentation is critically important