Realism test 2009

Realism

Realistic period: 1865-1915 ⊕ After civil war, no united

purpose
Reality/imagination or
fact/innovation ⊕ Sought to portray real life
as ordinary people live it
⊕ Division, reconciliation + ⊕ Stressed actual, not
expansion imagined
⊕ America was decentralized, ⊕ Wrote objectively, about
mostly agricultural ordinary people +
modern + industrial situations
⊕ Uncle tom’s cabin Irony — realists used
personalized slavery because life was ironic
⊕ Conflict=war years  Dramatic irony —
⊕ Years that audience/reader knows
followed=physical more than characters
expansion + about the situation
industrialization  Verbal irony — intended
⊕ The Gilded Age — mark meaning different than
twain names period actual meaning
 Situational irony —
What is realism? outcome different than
⊕ Realists were in revolt expected
against romanticism b/c of
civil war
Naturalism
⊕ People are victims, no control
⊕ Destiny decided by heredity, environment, physical drives
+ economic circumstances
People
STEPHEN CRANE
 Newspaper journalist
 Viewed things objectively
 Wrote after civil war (ironic)
 An episode of war

1
Realism test 2009
 Person not on offensive, rationing coffee
 Ironic /c we don’t expect him to be shot
 Mood is detached, no emotion
 Theme: it is in everyday life that we are changed
forever

AMBROSE BIERCE
 Naturalist
 “Bitter Bierce”
 Unsentimental, pessimist
 Captured the cruelty + futility of war + indifference of
death
 Occurrence at owl creek bridge
 Man being killed b/c he was trying to tamper
w/railroad for northerners
 Sees life flash before his eyes
 Objective until shift when reader sees into what he
wishes would happen
 Aware of his fate so time slows down
 Theme: hope can’t stop inevitable death, it can only
delay it (all hope is false)
Regionalism
⊕ Used dialects + vivid descriptions to capture essence of
life
People
Mark twain
 Real name: Samuel Langhorne Clemens
 Satire
 Used euphemisms (mild word/phrase to substitute for a
harsher one)
 Burlesque Biography
 Made fun of “family members”
 Used euphemisms to describe jobs
 Theme: poke fun at people who take themselves too
seriously
2
Realism test 2009
 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg
 Traveling man says that someone lent him money,
wants to reward him
 Must say phrase that was said to him
 Entire town lies and tries to get the money
 Theme: as good as people seem they can all be
hypocrites
KATE CHOPIN
 Conservative upbringing
 Captured local color of Louisiana (Creole) + women’s
role in society
 Precursor for suffrage movement
 Nature of marriage, racial prejudice + women’s desire
for social, economic + political equality
 The story of an hour
 Woman thinks her husband died, feels happiness +
relief
 Finds out de does not die, dies of heart problems
 Theme: control in whatever form limits an individual
 The Awakening
 Repression of women in Victorian America
 4 things Victorian women should develop: piety,
purity, domesticity + submissiveness
 Theme:: independence can bring solitude,
Independence can bring emotional, spiritual,
sexual + social awakenings