THE REAL AMERICA

The Age of Realism

What is character but the determination of an incident? What is the incident but the illustration of Character?
Henry James

Realism

Begins in France, as realisme, a literary doctrine calling for reality and truth in the depiction of ordinary life.
Grounded in the belief that there is an objective reality which can be portrayed with truth and accuracy as the goal; The writer does not select facts in accord with preconceived ideals, but rather sets down observations impartially and objectively.

1881- Henry James Publishes Portrait of a Lady

1881-Clara Barton Founds the Red Cross

1881- Booker T Washington Found the Tuskegee Institute

1884- Mark Twain publishes Huckleberry Finn

1883-Brooklyn Bridge built

1894- Kate Chopin Publishes Bayou Folk

1885 first Skyscraper built in Chicago

First Gas Powered Automobile

1894- Stephen Crane publishes Red Badge of Courage

1890- Massacre at Wounded Knee

1895 X Ray Discovered

1896 First Modern Olympics

1900- Theodore Dreiser publishes Sister Carrie

1898- Spanish American War

1899- Aspirin Invented

1903 Wright Brothers fly first plane

1906- Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle

1905- Albert Einstein formulates the Theory of Relativity

1910-Jane Adams publishes Twenty Years at Hull House

Henry Ford Builds first Model T and The Assembly line

Sigmund Freud Publishes The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis

1913-Willa Cather Publishes O Pioneers

1912- HMS Titanic Sinks

1914-Dr. Albert Scweitzer opens clinic in Africa

1914 WWI Begins

The Age of Realism: Marked by the End of the Civil War: 1861-1865

Cost of the Civil War

The Human Cost
1,094,543 Casualties The North lost one out of ten
110,100 in battle 224,580 to disease

The South lost one out of four

94,000 in battle 64,000 to disease

Two percent of US population died in the Civil War, with only WWII claiming more lives;

Economic Cost
Estimated at 6.6 billion, which would be 165 billion today

The Effects of The Industrial Revolution

Migration from rural to urban areas Independent, skilled workers replaced by semi-skilled laborers; Large corporations were established, devaluing the personal relationship between management and workers or company and customers.

Mass Communication and Migration

Coast-to-coast communication

Pony Express (1860)10 days Telegraph (1861)just seconds to communicate across country Transatlantic telegraph cable (1866) allowed instant communicate with Europe Telephone patented (1867) By 1900, 1.3 million telephones in U.S. Coast-to-coast travel Transcontinental Railroad (1869) By 1889, coast-to-coast travel4 days

Other Social Changes

Migration westward expanded the U.S. from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Native American populations displaced and subjugated;

Growth of Industry
Steelmaking, the nations dominant industry Alternating electrical current (1886) American petroleum industry begins

Growth of population
Total population doubled from 1870 to 1890 National income quadrupled Gap between rich and poor widened

Changes in science Changes in psychology Changes in philosophy

INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTION: CHANGES IN THINKING BROUGHT ABOUT BY CHANGES IN SOCIETY

Science: Charles Darwin

Published The Origin of Species,

Hypothesized that man is the product of evolution, Man is special not because God created him in His image,
but because man had successfully adapted to changing environmental conditions and had passed on his survival-making characteristics to his progeny.

Psychology: Sigmund Freud

Believed that the mind could be understood in terms of repressed urges, usually sexual; Theorized an unconscious system of ideas that governs human reactions and response; Id, Ego, and Super-ego

Philosophy: Karl Marx

Explained human history as the result of class struggles; Human identity is defined by social context; It is human nature to transform nature.

Philosophy: American Pragmatism

Truth is tested by its usefulness or practical consequences; Truth is a commodity accessible on the surface of things; Its perceptible to the senses and verifiable through experience; Permanent truths exist apart from the material worldthe mind of God, Platos ideal forms

William James

Mark Twain and Willa Cather

REGIONALISM AND LOCAL COLOR

A Reaction against Romanticism

Authors sought to portray life as they saw it, insisting that the ordinary and local were just as suitable for art as the sublime.

Nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material. William Dean Howells

Key Concepts
1.

2.

3.

Desire to record, celebrate and mythologize the cast diversity of the US diverse regions Pay Strict attention to recording accurately the speech, mannerism, behavior, and beliefs of people in specific locales Local-color writing that paints the local scene and the trends toward the humorous or the sentimental

Characteristics of Local Color

Settingoften remote and usually integral to the story; II. Charactersmore concerned with the character of the region than an individualquaint, stereotypical;
I.

III.

Narrator-- an educated observer from the world beyond whos often deceived Emphasis on dialect Use of stock characters

Plotnothing much happens, revolves around the community and its rituals

Themes in Local Color

1. 2.

3.

Dislike of change, nostalgia for an always-past Golden Age; Triumphant trickster or trickster tricked; Tall tale-tradition, conflicts described humorously, larger than life

Mark Twain aka Samuel Clemens

Born in Missouri
Steamboat pilot Typesetter Gold prospector Ex confederate soldier Journalist Prose writer
Loved to exaggerate the truth and create tall tales

Notable works
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn Life on the Mississippi

Fiction is obliged to stick to the possibilities. Truth Isnt

Twain

Key elements to Twain

A realistic approach reflects the people and characteristics of the region Vernacular Speech, the everyday language of people who live in a particular society and locale Colorful figures of speech, including metaphors, simile and hyperbole are used to add humor and vitality

Willa Cather
Born in Nebraska Influenced by growing up in the Wild Wild West of the US Studied at the University of Nebraska Found literary success in the muckraking magazine Mclures

Served as writer and editor

Notable Works
My Antonia A Wager Matinee O Pioneers!

PSYCHOLOGICAL REALISM

Characteristics of Realism
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Subject matterordinary people and events; PurposeVerisimilitude, the truthful representation of life; Point of Viewomniscient and objective Charactersmiddle class, psychological realism Plot de-emphasized
1. Focus on everyday life 2. Complex ethical choices often the subject 3. Events are made to seem the inevitable result of characters choices

Themes in Realism

Humans control their destinies

characters act on their environment rather than simply reacting to it.

Slice-of-life technique
often ends without traditional formal closure, leaving much untold to suggest mans limited ability to make sense of his life.

Key Concepts
1.

2.

Realism reacts against Romanticism and its idealized heroes and sensational situations It aims at an accurate and unsentimental depiction of social issues and problems

Psychological Determinism

Man is a victim of his inner and subconscious self (Freud).

NATURALISM

Objectives of Naturalism
Presentation is objective and detached Subject matterraw and unpleasant experiences which reduce people to degrading circumstances in order to survive; Setting commonplace and un-heroic Novelist discovers qualities in lower class characters usually associated with heroes

Suggestion that life on lowest levels is more complicated

Naturalism: A Harsher Realism

Definition: A literature that depicts social problems and views humans as victims of larger biological, psychological and social and economic forces.
Scientific determinism Psychological determinism Historical determinism

Themes in Naturalism
Man is fundamentally an animal, without free will; Governed by determinism

External and internal forces, environment or heredity control behavior; Characters have compensating humanistic values which affirm life; Struggle for life becomes heroic and affirms human dignity

Pessimistic view of human capabilitieslife is a trap