Realism

1. Realism Unit 3: Division, Reconciliation, and Expansion

2. Characteristics of Realistic Era Writing • Belief that humans control their destinies • Characters in Realist Era pieces ACT on their environment rather than REACTING to it. • Characters in these pieces are superior to circumstance.

3. Characteristics of Realistic Era Writing • The character is more important than action and plot. • Complex ethical choices are often the subject of the writing. • In contrast to previous eras, realistic writing rests upon the strengths of its characters rather than plot.

4. Characteristics of Realistic Era Writing • The realistic writer’s goals: • Represent experiences that are usual or typical rather than extraordinary or exotic. • Create a narrator that is not omniscient but who is often unreliable b/c he doesn’t have all the information. • Create a narrator whose perceptions are colored by his own prejudices or beliefs.

5. Characteristics of Realistic Era Writing • Realistic writers: • Embrace the concept that people are neither completely good or completely bad—just somewhere on the spectrum (differs from previous eras). • Write in such a way that most of the “action” is internalized. • Create turning points and climaxes that are characterized by changes in mood or perceptions or opinions.

6. Characteristics of Realistic Era Writing • In Realistic writing: • Social class is important. • Symbolism is controlled and limited. • Images are depended upon.

7. Regionalism/Local Color Unit 3: Division, Reconciliation, and Expansion

8. Characteristics of Regionalism / Local Color • The emphasis is frequently on nature and the limitations it imposes. • Settings are frequently remote and may sometimes settings may become a character in itself. • Stories may include lots of storytelling and revolve around the community and its rituals.

9. Characteristics of Regionalism / Local Color • Local color stories: • Tend to be concerned with the character of the district or region rather than with the individual. • Tend to involve character types—which are sometimes stereotypical. • Involve characters who are marked by their adherence to the old ways • By dialect, and by particular personality trails central to the region.

10. Characteristics of Regionalism / Local Color • Narrator in Regional / Local Color stories: • Is typically educated observer from the world beyond who learns something from the characters. • Serve as mediators between the rural fold of the tale and the urban audience to whom the tale is directed.

11. Characteristics of Regionalism / Local Color • Writing reflects and antipathy to change and a certain degree of nostalgia for an always-past golden age. • A celebration of community and acceptance in the face of adversity characterizes women’s local color fiction. • Tension or conflict between urban ways and old-fashioned rural values is often symbolized • Often with intrusion of an outsider who seeks something from the community.

12. Naturalism Unit 3: Division, Reconciliation, and Expansion

13. Characteristics of Naturalism • Naturalistic Writing: • Tends to view people as hapless victims of natural laws. • Presents the reader with reality without illusion, to offer scientific, detached view rather than simply please or even mislead reader. • Scrutinizes the ills of society—naturalist writers believed that the laws behind the forces that govern human lives might be studied and understood.

14. Characteristics of Naturalism • This movement found expression almost exclusively within the novel. • It found its greatest number of practitioners in America. • Dominant theme is that persons are fated to whatever station in life their heredity, environment, and social conditions prepare them for.

15. Characteristics of Naturalism • Characters in Naturalist Writing: • Live in a natural world that is indifferent to their plights. • Are controlled by their heredity, environment, instincts, and passions. • Are often set in harsh urban or unforgiving frontier landscapes.