Warm-Up Summative Task Breakdown Realism – a closer look “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Homework
Think about the last novel you read for pleasure. What elements of the text kept you hooked? Be specific! EQ: ◦ How is cultural experience reflected in literature? Objective: ◦ To gain an overview of the historical context and literary concerns of Realism
The Puritan Era Age of Reason Transcendentalism American Literature Romanticism Realism Modernism 1946 – Present Contemporary and Post-Modern Period
Population of the United States is growing rapidly. Science, industry and transportation are expanding. Literature also was growing, but most new writers were not Romantics or Transcendentalists. They are Realists. The “Frontier” did not exist as before; its legacy changed and impacted Realists in its new form. The aftermath of the Civil War meant that Americans were less certain and optimistic about the future. The idealism of the Romantics and philosophy of Transcendentalists seemed out of date and irrelevant to many readers.
TThe purpose of the writing is “to instruct and entertain” Character is more important than plot. SSubject matter is drawn from real life experience. TThe realists reject symbolism and romanticizing of subjects. SSettings are usually those familiar to the author. PPlots emphasized “the norm of daily experience” Ordinary characters
Uniformity and diversity “The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads…and a story written by a measuring worm.” ~ Ambrose Bierce Capturing the commonplace For Twain and other authors, narrative voice is one of division – before and after war; conventions versus personal conviction Writing in vernacular and local dialect Local stories Nature again ◦ Yes, its beauty, but also its hardship and how it wears the human spirit down
God Government Education Man’s Purpose in Life American Dream Evidence of Influence
Ambrose Bierce
1870s-80s: journalist and writer in San Francisco (later with Hearst publications) ◦ : magazine writer in London Wrote stories about the War and about California: unsentimental & disillusioned; he read Stoic philosophy Married wealthy miner’s daughter in 1871; divorced in 1905 The Devil’s Dictionary (1911) is his often- quoted book of cynical definitions: Happiness: “an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.”
: mainly in Washington as political lobbyist for Hearst and journalist Sept. 10, 1913, age 71: "I am going away to South America, and have not the faintest notion when I shall return.” He posted a letter from Mexico, then vanished; possibly killed in Mexican Civil War
Section I: Present; Realism: Military Ritual of Hanging; hint of subjectivity/fantasy Section II: Flashback; Realism/Satire: Framing of Peyton Farquhar by Union spy Section III: Present Future; Fantasy; ends realistically in present
Section 1; ¶1-2: Bierce establishes texture of reality through close description of execution scene: bodily positions, military rank, physical equipment, etc. ¶2, end: the formality of the scene associated with Death ¶3: description of protagonist appeals to historical reality and reader’s sympathy: “kindly expression”
Section II; ¶8-17: Southern gentry portrayed through Bierce’s Northern satiric perspective: ◦ “Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause” (¶8) ◦ “the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war” (¶8) ◦ “Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands” (¶9) ◦ Ultimate irony: Soldier was a Union spy
Section 1; ¶4, end: subjectivity enters narrative: ◦ Narrator’s detached intellect: “simple and effective” “‘unsteadfast footing’”: quote from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I ◦ Time appears to slow down: “stream racing madly” “sluggish stream” Slowing of his watch, increase in volume
Finish reading the text. Questions 1 – 10 Create a graphic organizer from the Realism notes and locate 3 quotes from the text to support each Realism element present in the text. ◦ 3 quotes for each element ◦ Be sure to list the page number and paragraph number for each quote
Section I; ¶6: “Flash” of thought expressed as words: “If I could free my hands....” Section III; ¶18: loss of consciousness; reawakening “ages later, it seemed”; pain of hanging, “unaccompanied by thought” Thought restored: impression that rope has broken and he is in stream ¶19: Detached from himself: “watched” his hands free themselves and remove noose; he surfaces
¶20: Senses “preternaturally keen and alert”; observes natural world ◦ Ripples of stream ◦ Leaves of trees, insects ◦ Dewdrops on blades of grass ◦ Gnats, dragon flies, water spiders, fish
¶21: Sees his executioners: “their forms gigantic” ¶22: One of sentinels fires rifle; Farquhar sees his “gray eye” looking into the rifle sights: an impossible perception ◦ Note: Farquhar’s own eye is gray (¶3) ¶25: Bullets fired; one lodges in his neck and “he snatched it out” (unrealistic detail) ¶30: cannon fired
¶31: whirling: “Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color”; similar to painterly expressionism, ◦ The Scream (1893; same decade as Bierce’s story) by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch ( ); see next slide
Details suggest artificial, dreamlike setting: ◦ ¶31: Sand like “diamonds, rubies, emeralds; trees “giant garden plants; he noted a definite order to their arrangement” ◦ ¶33: “forest seemed interminable”; “He had not known that he lived in so wild a region”: uncanny ◦ ¶34: Nightfall: road “wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwellings anywhere.”
Some details hint at menace, threat: ◦ ¶34: “black bodies of trees formed a straight wall on both sides” ◦ “strange constellations”: “secret and malign significance” ◦ “whispers in an unknown tongue”
¶35: Hints that Farquhar is still in the noose: ◦ Neck pain ◦ Eyes congested, unable to close ◦ Tongue swollen, thrust out ◦ Feet suspended above ground
¶36: Morning: approaches home Wife standing to meet him: “fresh and cool and sweet,” “smile of ineffable joy” Farquhar “springs forwards with extended arms”; “stunning blow to back of neck”; “blinding white light”; “darkness and silence” ¶37: “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.”