Features of American Realism

1. Features of American Realism Emerged in France in the 19th century Movement in art and literature Realism represents common people and their everyday life No more idealization of the subject The “truth” is an artist’s interpretation Names that you will hear about when talking about realism: Gustav Flaubert, Emil Zola, George Sand "Realism." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 7. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 91-93. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.

2. The Task Identify the mood of your groups’ assignedpassage and piece of art. Together, analyze how various elements contribute to the mood of each piece. Finally, determine whether the moods and authors’ purposes are similar or different from each other. Explain how you know. Day 1 - Writing component: prepare 2 well-developed, analytical paragraphs (one for the passage, one for the art) and another paragraph that compares/contrasts the moods and purposes of the two texts. You will submit 3 paragraphs total. Day 2 – Presentation component: You will present your findings to the class. You may NOT read your paragraphs to the class, but should intelligently speak about and analyze the texts using the overhead.

3. Analyzing Passage #1 “About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke, and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operates from your sight…the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg…some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground” (23, 24). 1. What diction is used, and what connotations do these terms have? 2. What details are included to create imagery? What images come to mind when you read these details? 3. What is the mood or atmosphere created? 4. What is the author’s purpose? What was the author trying to do or convey?

4. Analyzing Painting #1 What is the first thing that catches your attention? What is on the first plane? What is going on? What is in the background? Why did the artist place it there? What colors, shapes, shades, and lighting is used? Why did the author create them this way? What is the general mood/ atmosphere/ climate/ vibe that you get from the painting? What creates that mood/ atmosphere/ climate/ vibe? What contributes to it?

5. Analyzing Passage #2 “The large room was full of people. One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano, and beside her stood a tall, red-haired young lady from a famous chorus, engaged in song. She had drunk a quantity of champagne, and during the course of her song she had decided, ineptly, that everything was very, very sad—she was not only singing, she was weeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with gasping, broken sobs, and then took up the lyric again in a quavering soprano. The tears coursed down her cheeks—not freely, however, for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets. A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face, whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair, and went off into a deep vinous sleep. ‘She had a fight with a man who says he’s her husband,’ explained a girl at my elbow’” (51). 1. What diction is used, and what connotations do these terms have? 2. What details are included to create imagery? What images come to mind when you read these details? 3. What is the mood or atmosphere created? 4. What is the author’s purpose? What was the author trying to do or convey?

6. Analyzing Painting #2 What is the first thing that catches your attention? What is on the first plane? What is going on? What is in the background? Why did the artist place it there? What colors, shapes, shades, and lighting is used? Why did the author create them this way? What is the general mood/ atmosphere/ climate/ vibe that you get from the painting? What creates that mood/ atmosphere/ climate/ vibe? What contributes to it?

7. Analyzing Passage #3 “I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour” (9). 1. What diction is used, and what connotations do these terms have? 2. What details are included to create imagery? What images come to mind when you read these details? 3. What is the mood or atmosphere created? 4. What is the author’s purpose? What was the author trying to do or convey?

8. Analyzing Painting #3 • What is the first thing that catches your attention? • What is on the first plane? What is going on? What is in the background? Why did the artist place it there? • What colors, shapes, shades, and lighting is used? Why did the author create them this way? • What is the general mood/ atmosphere/ climate/ vibe that you get from the painting? • What creates that mood/ atmosphere/ climate/ vibe? What contributes to it?