Satire

1. Satire • A literary form that combines humor and wit with criticism the purpose of which is the improving of the human institutions and/or humanity. • There are 2 basic forms of satire – Formal or Direct Satire and Indirect Satire. • Formal Satire is first person satire directed to the audience or another character in the text. • Indirect Satire is expressed through narrative and is normally told in the 3rd person. It is derived from the actions of the characters.

2. Principles of Realism • 1. Insistence upon and defense of "the experienced commonplace". • 2. Character more important than plot. • 3. Attack upon romanticism and romantic writers. • 4. Emphasis upon morality often self-realized and upon an examination of idealism. • 5. Concept of realism as a realization of democracy.

3. Local Color Movement • The Local Color Movement grows out of American Realism. Twain’s use of dialect inspires a whole generation of writers to copy his use of “local color” to flavor their stories. • Writers like Twain, Kate Chopin, Flannery O’Conner, and Edith Wharton are sometimes referred to as Local Color writers.

4. Local Color Defined • Local Color is writing that exploits the speech, dress, mannerisms, habits of thought, and topography peculiar to a certain region. • Locale Color Writing exists primarily for the portrayal of the people and life of a geographical setting. • The Local Color Movement begins in 1880 and comes out of the Realist Movement. This style of writing is marked by the attempt at accurate dialect, a tendency toward the use of eccentrics as characters, and the use of sentimentalized pathos or whimsical humor in plotting. • Local Color Writing lacks the basic seriousness of true Realism. It emphasizes verisimilitude of detail without being concerned with the larger ethical questions that tend to define a work as Realist Literature.

5. Picaresque Novel Defined • Picaresque Novel: A chronicle, usually autobiographical, presenting the life story of a rascal of low degree engaged in menial tasks by making his living through his wits rather than his industry. • Episodic in nature, the picaresque novel is, in the usual sense of the word, structureless. • The picaro (central figure of the picaresque novel) lives through his pranks and predicaments. • By virtue of his association with people of varying degree, the picaro affords the author the opportunity for satire on the social classes. • The classic picaresque novel is romantic in that it is a novel of adventure • The picaresque novel is marked by realistic methods in its faithfulness to petty detail, its frankness of expression, and its presentation of incidents from low life.

6. Bildungsroman • Bildungsroman: a coming to age novel. • It deals with the development of a young person, usually from adolescence to maturity. • It is frequently autobiographical. • The main character learns the nature of the world, acquires a philosophy of life, and discovers the “art of living” through his/her adventures in the world. • In the German it litearlly means, a novel of education or formation.