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Realism
1865-1915
Historical Context:
• Post Civil War/Emancipation Proclamation
• Racism, poverty, purposelessness, labor
problems
• Population explosion/cities grew
• Improvements in transportation (cars,
trains, improved roads)
• Industrialization in full force
• Westward expansion
• Philosophy: Literature should accurately depict
modern life and its problems by presenting the
entire picture and not just what was seen through
the rose-colored glasses of Romanticism and
Transcendentalism
• “Slice of Life” writing—show different classes and
stratifications in American life using details from
observation and documentation—tried to look at
society objectively
• Writer’s task also became to deal honestly with
character and reveal messages and meanings
behind familiar words, actions, and situations—find
meaning in the commonplace
• Regionalism (a subset of Realism)—emphasized
locale or place and the elements that create
local color: description of landscape, customs
dress, speech, including realistic and regional
language
– Dialect—language of a particular district,
class, or group of persons; encompasses the
sounds, spelling, grammar, and diction
employed by a specific people as
distinguished from other persons either
geographically or socially
Language varieties are often called
dialects rather than languages:
• Because they have no standard form
• Because the speakers of the given language do
not have a state of their own
• Because they are rarely or never used in
writing (outside reported speech)
• Because they lack prestige with respect to
some other, often standardized variety
A Few Notable American Realism Authors:
– Mark Twain
– Stephen Crane
– Willa Cather
– Kate Chopin
– Jack London
– Edgar Lee Masters
The Picaresque
• A SATIRE which especially focuses on a
nation’s character and its social character; a
criticism
• EPISODIC - A series of pranks, predicaments,
episodes (as opposed to a continuous plot)
• TRAVELS - Adventures during travel (road, sea,
river)
• Follows one main character who functions as a
first person narrator telling his own story.
– Naïve – not fully aware of the meaning of
circumstances or own actions (know the limits of
trusting this narrator – consider the source)
– Rascal – or rogue, someone of questionable character,
socially unacceptable, may be a petty criminal
– Street smart – lives more from wits than work
– Sympathetic – despite failings, someone we
sympathize with, understand, and see at least some
virtue
• Romantic in that it is an adventure story, but
realistic in its detail, frankness, and
concentration on disenfranchised classes
• Characterized by plain language (dialect and
vernacular)
• Famous Picaresques
– Candide (1759)
– Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
– Catcher in the Rye (1954)
Irony
• Technique of indicating an intention or
attitude opposed to what is actually stated.
Often, only the context of the statement leads
the reader to understand it is ironic. Irony
makes use of hyperbole, sarcasm, satire, and
understatement.
Verbal Irony
• Word or phrase that is used to suggest the
opposite of its usual meaning. Often the
writer's expression of awareness between
what is and what ought to be and used for the
purpose of mockery or jest. Defined by Cicero
as “Saying of one thing and meaning another.”
– A man staring out a window looking at a miserably
rainy day and stating, “Lovely day for a stroll.”
Situational Irony
• Occurrence of an event that directly
contradicts the expectations of the characters,
the reader, or the audience
– When a pickpocket gets his own pockets picked.
Dramatic Irony
• Contradiction between what a character thinks
and what the reader or audience knows to be
true (different meaning for the readers than
characters). This is the result of the reader
having greater knowledge than the characters
themselves.
– In The Scarlet Letter when Hester asks Dimmesdale to
support her position to the governor in keeping Pearl.
The reader knows that Dimmesdale and Hester are
partners in sin, but the characters do not.
Brainstorm
What do you know/have you heard/
do you think is true/?s do you have about
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
1884
Mark Twain
"Mark Twain had a clearer vision of life…he came nearer to its
elementals and was less deceived by its false appearances, than
any other American who has ever presumed to manufacture
generalizations, not excepting Emerson. I believe that he was the
true father of our national literature, the first genuinely
American artist of the royal blood.”
–H.L. Mencken
“All modern American literature comes form one book by Mark
Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” —Ernest Hemingway
Mark Twain
• Born Samuel Clemens, Missouri, 1835-1910
• Pseudonym, Mark Twain, comes from his days as a river pilot, and
means two fathoms or 12-feet when the depth of water for a boat
is being sounded. "Mark twain" means that is safe to navigate
(mark number two).
"A sin takes on a new and real terror when there seems a chance
that it is going to be found out."
“Supposing is good‚ but finding out is better.”
“I have never tried to help cultivate the cultivated classes. I was not
equipped for it, either by native gifts or training. And I never had
any ambition in that direction, but always hunted for bigger game—
the masses.”
The Controversy: “Born to Trouble”
and Still Alive
• No American novel has been attacked by the
public as long and as continuously
• Immediately banned as “the veriest trash,
suitable only for the slums” by the Concord, MA
Public Library
• 1957 the NAACP charged that it contained “racial
slurs” and demanded it be banned from school
curricula
• 1998 parents in AZ sued local high school over
the book’s inclusion on a required reading list
Significance of the Representation of
Black English in Huck Finn
• “The Black man was the co-creator of the
language and Mark Twain raised it to the level
of literary eloquence.” —Ralph Ellison
• Serves as a precursor to subsequent Black
fiction (as acknowledged by Langston Hughes,
Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, etc.)
Supplemental Into Texts
• “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What
Is?”, James Baldwin
• “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”,
Peggy McIntosh
• From PBS Culture Shock, “Born to Trouble:
Adventures of Huck Finn”
• “Teaching Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn”, Shelly Fisher Fishkin
• “New edition of ‘Huck Finn’ removes offensive
words”, Julie Bosman