THE REACTION AGAINST THE ROMANTICS: 1865-1910 REALISM THE REACTION AGAINST THE ROMANTICS: 1865-1910

CONTRASTING PARADIGMS Romanticism: Present life as we would want it to be. Realism: Present life as it actually is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTCjHZWmgG0

ELEMENTS OF REALISM Ordinary, not extraordinary people Middle or lower class People you could meet on an average day: soldiers, farmers, teachers, grandfathers Commonplace events and settings Places you could actually see and visit The near and familiar as opposed to the far away and exotic

ELEMENTS OF REALISM All aspects of life are examined Nothing is taboo: must represent life AS IT IS, even the ugly, the degrading, the uncomfortable The Jungle: meatpacking industry Descriptive detail Describe people, places, things minutely Focus on concrete, objective detail Accuracy of description is critical

ELEMENTS OF REALISM Accuracy of setting, plot, and character Language: often written in dialect so that the actual sound of language could be rendered Plain, straightforward prose Smaller words and shorter sentences: keep it simple and real.

ELEMENTS OF REALISM Author as objective reporter giving readers an unbiased “slice of life.” Nothing ever is free of bias . . . Psychological Realism Render not just our physical appearances and actions realistically; also render internal mental and emotional aspects of people accurately. Poe was way ahead of time here

Advances in the field of human psychology also fed into the preoccupation with representing the inner workings of the mind, and the delicate play of emotions. William James, brother of novelist Henry James, was a prominent figure in the early history of human psychology. Psychologists were just beginning to understand that human consciousness was far more complicated and varied than had previously been considered. Debates about nature versus nurture were as popular then as they are today. More than anything, the understanding that in the human mind there are very few absolutes was critical for the realist sensibility. To put it another way, Realism embraced the concept that people were neither completely good or completely bad, but somewhere on a spectrum

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Authors Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) George Eliot (1819-1880) Henry James (1843-1916) Mark Twain (1835-1910) Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

Realism came under attack largely because it represented such a bold departure from what readers had come to expect from the novel. The fascination with things falling apart was unpleasant to many, and critics sometimes accused the practitioners of Realism of focusing only on the negative. Readers complained that very little happened in realistic fiction, that they were all talk and little payoff.

Realist novelists eschewed many of the novel’s established traditions, mostly in plot structure. Typically, novels follow a definite arc of events, with an identifiable climax and resolution. They are self-contained and satisfying in their symmetry. Successful careers have been built on the scaffolding of a single story arc. The school of Realism observed that life did not follow such patterns, so neither should the novel. Instead of grand happenings, tragedies, and epic turns of events, the realist novel plodded steadily over a track not greatly disturbed by external circumstances.

Purpose The purpose of all of these innovations, as with the whole of Realism, was to more accurately simulate the nature of reality – unknowable, uncertain, and ever-shifting reality.

CAUSES OF THE RISE OF REALISM Reaction against Romantic excesses: Emotion Sentimentality Idealism Distorted reality

CAUSES OF THE RISE OF REALISM Industrialism Progress at cost of human dignity Cogs in a machine: dehumanizing; thoughtless automatons Low pay; no unions Horrendous working conditions Ghettos/big city slums Loss of the American Dream Rich get richer; poor get poorer

CAUSES OF THE RISE OF REALISM Darwin and the theory of Evolution and Natural Selection We are glorified apes—not created in God’s image No soul or spirit: driven be same motives as animals Nature is not divine or good Natural Selection seems to justify destruction of the weak to feed the strong

CAUSES OF THE RISE OF REALISM Science and Rational Thought reborn Emphasis on objective, observable fact Downplays imagination and intuition Cold analysis over emotion: back to the Age of Reason in a way Questioning of spiritual realms, God, that are beyond observable, empirical fact

CAUSES OF THE RISE OF REALISM The Civil War Death and destruction on an unprecedented scale Causes questioning of God’s nature: Why did He allow this if he is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving? Causes questioning of human nature: If we are good, why do we do this to each other? Causes questioning of progress: We seem to have just created better, more efficient ways to kill each other

TOTAL, OVERALL EFFECT Disillusionment: beginnings of the loss of faith we see more profoundly later on. Loss of the foundations of our faith. Pessimism: hard to feel good about God, people, nature, or the human condition Cold analysis Attempt to find something to use as a foundation: the everyday, the common, the physical: things we can be absolutely sure of

THE CHALLENGE OF REALISM Seems simple on surface: observe, report. It is very difficult to observe accurately It is very difficult to be unbiased Most people live in a cloud of fantasy, illusion, and daydreaming: must cut through that. Takes more skill than it first appears to be accurate, truthful, and objective