The Rise of Realism: 1850-1900

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The Rise of Realism1850-1900

• The only reason for the existence of a novel is
  that it does attempt to represent life.
• -Henry James

Prisoners from the Front, Winslow Homer, 1922.
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People, places, Things1850 - 1900

• What are some of the important events?
• Who are some authors of this period?
• What are some of the important works of this time?

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Realism A Very Minute Fidelity

• Realism dominated fiction in America from the
  late 19th century until the middle of the 20th.
• The Realists
• were writers who sought to portray real life
  without filtering it through personal feelings,
  romanticism, or idealism
• wanted to be as accurate as possible when
  depicting people, places, and things. Think of
  Realism as the photography of writing.

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A Reaction to Romanticism

• Realism is a reaction to idealized romantic
  novels of the previous period.
• Romanticism Recall
• Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo
  Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau.

Fallen Monarchs, William Bliss Backer, 1886.
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Characteristics

• Realistic writing is characterized by
• honest, believable characters
• realistic dialogue
• events in the story that seem possible in real
  life
• characters that are driven by real motives and
  emotions
• characters that dont change without sufficient
  reason
• objectivity.

Young Soldier, Winslow Homer, 1861.
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Realism vs. Romanticism
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The Civil War

• Casualties, 1861-1865
• Federal 664,928
• Confederate 483,026
• Battles destroyed farms and homes.
• Cities were bombarded and burned.
• Shermans March to the Sea
• Suddenly, life wasnt so nice.
• The romantic heroes of the past werent cutting
  it anymore.

Four dead soldiers in the woods near Little Round
Top, Alexander Gardner, 1863.
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The Civil War, cont.

• Journalistic accounts of the Civil War developed
  a taste for realistic writing.
• Increased use of photography also helped shaped
  Americas taste for realistic depictions.

Body of a Confederate Soldier Near Mrs. Alsop's
House, 1864.
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Naturalism

• Naturalism holds the same view as Realism with
  the addition of
• Man has LITTLE control over his fate
• Life is NEVER perfect problems exist in society
• Life is ALMOST NEVER fair
• Good ALMOST NEVER wins over Evil

Hiding in the Haycocks, William Bliss Baker, 1881.

• Nature does not care about the plight of man.

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Naturalism, cont.

• A man said to the universe
• Sir, I exist!
• However, replied the universe,
• The fact has not created in me
• A sense of obligation.
• - Stephen Crane
• How does this poem espouse the tenants of
  Naturalism?

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Regionalism

• Regionalism has ALL the characteristics of
  Realism PLUS
• using regional dialects
• descriptions of a local area or region
• local cultures and customs.
• Writers attempt to make the reader feel theyve
  been to an area without actually going there.

Champions of the Mississippi, Currier Ives.
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Stephen Crane

• Associated with the Naturalist movement
• b. 1871 (remember this date)
• Youngest of fourteen children often ill as a
  child
• First work published in 1893
• Maggie A Girl of the Streets
• Financial failure

• Stephen Crane.

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Stephen Crane, cont.

• The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
• A novel about the Civil War told through the
  point of view of a young private.
• The highlight of his literary career.
• Remember his birth date?
• Wrote numerous stories and poems and worked as a
  newspaper correspondent (Nothing as popular as
  Red Badge, however.)

• Stephen Crane in Athens, 1897.

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Stephen Crane, cont.

• While enroute to Cuba in 1896, Crane met Cora
  Taylor (a hostess).
• The pair journeyed to Greece in 1897 to cover the
  Greco-Turkish War.
• Unfortunately, Crane spent the rest of his life
  plagued by both finical and health struggles.
• Diagnosed with tuberculosis, he died in a
  sanitarium in Germany in 1900.
• He was only twenty-eight years old.

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Ambrose Bierce

• b. 1842
• Father Marcus Aurelius Bierce
• an eccentric and unsuccessful farmer
• Fought on the side of the Union during the Civil
  War
• Part of Shermans March to the Sea
• Severely wounded and cited for bravery fifteen
  times
• Left the army, moved to San Francisco, began to
  write for newspapers

Ambrose Bierce, 1892.
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Ambrose Bierce, cont.

• Worked for several newspapers in San Francisco
• Married in 1871, separated in 1888
• (Bierce discovered compromising letters from an
  admirer of his wife.)
• The Devils Dictionary, 1906.
• d. 1914
• ((we think))

Ambrose Bierce, J.H.E. Parington.
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Ambrose Bierce, cont.

• Bierce left America in 1913 to report on (or
  perhaps join) the Mexican Revolution.
• In one of his last letters, Bierce wrote the
  following to his niece, Lora
• Good-bye if you hear of my being stood up
  against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags
  please know that I think that a pretty good way
  to depart this life. It beats old age, disease,
  or falling down the cellar stairs.
• And that was the last anyone heard from him...

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The Devils Dictionary

• Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to
  listen.
• Cannon, n. An instrument employed in the
  rectification of national boundaries.
• Circus, n. A place where horses, ponies and
  elephants are permitted to see men, women and
  children acting the fool.
• Clarionet, n. An instrument of torture operated
  by a person with cotton in his ears. There are
  two instruments that are worse than a clarionet
  two clarionets.

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The Devils Dictionary, cont.

• Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining
  individual profit without individual
  responsibility.
• Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe
  whose influence in human affairs has always been
  dominant and controlling.
• Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by
  marriage.
• Novel, n. A short story padded.
• Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which
  has the advantages of making a disagreeable
  person keep his distance.

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The Devils Dictionary, cont.

• Vote, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's
  power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of
  his country.
• Yankee, n. In Europe, an American. In the
  Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In
  the Southern States the word is unknown.
• Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting
  the young and inexperienced.

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Jack London

• b. 1876
• As a boy, he was largely uncared for by his
  parents (495).
• In his teens, he
• was an oyster pirate
• sailed on a schooner
• went seal-hunting
• wrote for several newspapers
• prospected for gold in the Klondike.

• Portrait of Jack London, Arnold Genthe.

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Jack London, Cont.

• London left the Klondike after only a year due to
  illness.
• His time in the Klondike, however, convinced him
  that life is a struggle in which the strong
  survive and the weak do not (495), a perspective
  which highly influenced his work.
• His story To Build a Fire is based on his
  experiences in the Klondike.

• Jack London.

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Jack London, cont.

• The Call of the Wild (1903) is his most famous
  work.
• The Call of the Wild is the story of a sled dog
  named Buck who escapes to freedom.
• In his later years, Londons health deteriorated
  due to alcoholism.
• d. 1916
• London overdosed on narcotics in November of 1916
  and lapsed into a coma.
• He died the following evening at the age of forty.

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Works Consulted

• Arpin, Gary Q. The Rise of Realism The Civil
  War and Postwar Period. Elements of
  Literature. Austin Holt, Rinehart Winston,
  2000. 408-422.
• Vanderziel, Jeffery. "Civil War Statistics." The
  American Civil War. 2001. 17 Feb 2009
  lthttp//www.phil.muni.cz/vndrzl/amstudies/ civil
  war_stats.htmgt.