Examples Of Realism In The Real Thing

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Realism “The Real Thing” is about a couple who are in times of desperate need. They are struggling to find work to continue living the life they have lived and stay in their social class. The only thing they have going for them is their noble looks and sophisticated manners. They have no real talents deeper than what meets the eye. They meet with an artist who tries to use a real lady and gentlemen in an art work striving to portray a lady and gentlemen, but he realizes “The Real Thing” is not what the viewers find interesting or attractive. After much criticism, the artist decides to paint the models who are not actually ladies or gentleman at all, but they are more aesthetically pleasing to the viewers. The lady and gentlemen finally put …show more content…

One of the main reasons for picking this section was how well it explained the themes and ideas that Henry James was trying to convey in “The Real Thing”. This article was able to help us better understand the use of realism and how it had an impact on the story and characters. The main driving force behind “The Real Thing” is the nature of what is real and what is simulated. The Monarch’s seem to pass for wealthy, upper class citizens, from the way they talk, act, and even dress, and the Artist believes it as well. “For the narrator, Mrs. Monarch stubbornly remains ‘the real thing’; the Monarchs radiate the aura of wealth and its desired associations” (Bazargan 135). However, the Monarchs were only trying to pass as wealthy in the eyes of others, even when they had no such wealth. This view that the Artist had of the Monarchs overlapped into his paintings, and he was never able to portray them as they were, instead, only as he perceived them to …show more content…

An excerpt states “Edwin H Cady firstly examines the revolt on the part of the American realists against the excess of Romanticism” (Edwin H. Cady 56) The fact that he uses the word “revolt” automatically shows that there is a major negative connotation and that the realist writers want to put an end to all the romanticist writing. The two writing styles undoubtedly clashed, and the realists made no effort in hiding the way they felt about romantic literary works. Realist would write harsh critiques on romantic literature and expose to the public their cruel opinions of the literary works. A short Selection states “Henry James may, as he perceived to his chagrin, have “cut the cable” in the American and let the balloon of experience float away in the romantic “disconnected uncontrolled.” But in the portrait of a lady he was soon engaged in the realist’s joyous game of shooting down romantic balloons, piercing them through to let the gassy hot air out and drop them back to the earth.” (Edwin H. Cady 57-58) In the story “The Real Thing” I think Henry James is cleverly stating that the realist are boring and not what readers want. He made this statement more or less, in a parable to avoid objecting himself to criticism by all the realist

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