Opposites Attract

Every time period has its great authors, Realism and Naturalism are no exception. The two that I found the most compelling in their differences was, “Life on the Mississippi” and “The Lost Phoebe.” Some of the contrasts that I found range from the events that take place, to the different views of the American dream, and how one could see humor in life while the other could not.

Realism dealt with the everyday middle class and Naturalism took the darker side of things and mainly wrote about the working class people. In Mark Twain’s memoir, “Life on the Mississippi”, it is easy to see that he grew up in a middle class home, town, and even his father’s job as a justice of the peace was blandly middle class. It was easy to see through the detail that he provided the young boys playing and dreaming of bigger and better things. These boys wanted to see adventure and hoped to get out of there sleepy little town. Most or none these boys probably never made it to far from what they grew up in. Dreiser’s story, “The Lost Phoebe”, portrays a completely different side of the tracks. It’s very obvious that Henry and Phoebe Reifsneider came from the working class. They were poor even though they worked hard and could never improve their lot in life. Henry and Phoebe move in with his parents in his childhood home and I don’t believe that was a strange occurrence for that time period or that class. This story was different in that it gives the reader a sense of desolation that no matter how hard Henry and Phoebe worked, their lot in life was not going to improve.

Twain tells about his sleepy town and the ordinary events that occurred there. This was Realism at its finest. He describes the town in such detail that I could almost smell the a...

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... have an American Dream either. Nowhere in the story does Dreiser tell of Henry and Phoebe wanting more for themselves or having delusions of grandeur. They are content with what they have and don’t dream of bigger and better things. In Twain’s memoir the reader sees the belief in the American Dream. He has dreams of making a better life for himself and of being the envy of all, by becoming a riverboat pilot. There is no sense of desolation, just hope for something better.

Everyone has an opinion of how life is lived and it should be lived. Mark Twain and Theodore Dreiser are no different than anyone else, they had their own view of life. Even though one wrote a memoir and the other a story both works of literature held some key elements from that period of time in which the story was written. These elements were different from one another in a lot of ways.