How Realism Rose to Power :William Dean Howell
The rise of realism helped shape the communities and cultures of the world.In the United States alone it changed the way we felt about war. The goal for realism writers was to not be like the writers of stylization .The writings of realism portrayed american people's foolishness Many authors also influenced People during this time. Lots of books and historical events were influenced by realism.Ironist writing was a part of realism too. Many of the stories were written about the truth.Common themes of realism include democratic function of literature.As industrialization grew, so did alienation. Also local writers used local roots to make their stories relatable.But the goal for all of the writers
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He wrote about life in a realistic manner. He also captured the colloquial voice of American speech with slang and iconoclasm. Another writer that contributed to the realism era Was William Dean Howell. Howell was a realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright. He had the nickname of "The Dean of American Letters". And he was also known for his help in the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, such as Christmas story "Christmas Every Day", and the novels such as The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Traveler from Altruria.Howell was a writer that was very truthful and very focused on the commonplace and common man.He was the first writer to tell a story about the common American divorce situation.His writing were very truthful and honest about the common folk and the and the natural world.William Dean Howells main focus was to turn away from romanticism and began a new type of writing,realism. Howells introduction to literature was in the troubling times just before the war for the Union, and he had an ungreedy enthusiasm for the great principles which were then at stake. Yet the political leaven mainly caused the troubling he was causing to get worse , and his native genius was distinctly for work in creative literature.A third writer that made a contribution to this time period was Stephen Crane. Crane had ancestral roots going back to the Revolutionary War such as soldiers, judges, and farmers who lived a century before . He was mainly a journalist who also wrote fiction, essays, dabbled in the writings of plays .Crane saw life at its rawest, in slums and on battlefields. His haunting novel about the civil war , The Red Badge of Courage, was published to great acclaim in 1895, but he barely had time to bask in the attention before he died, at 28, having neglected his health.
Stephen Crane firmly cemented himself in the canon of American Romanticism with the success of works such as The Red Badge of Courage and "The Blue Hotel." His writing served to probe the fundamental depths of the genre while enumerating on the themes vital to the movement's aesthetic. Such topics as heartfelt reverence for the beauty and ferocity of nature, the general exaltation of emotion over reason and senses over intellect, self-examination of personality and its moods and mental possibilities, a preoccupation with genius and the heroic archetype in general, a focus on passions and inner struggles, and an emphasis on imagination as a gateway to transcendence, as well as a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, and folk culture are all characteristic of his stories.
Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage, in regards to the American Civil War once despondently wrote, “It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws” (Crane). Such describes the desperate and harrowing atmosphere of the time during which Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States. As Abraham Lincoln once perspicaciously reflected upon the significance of the Civil War, "The struggle of today is not altogether for today — it is for a vast future also" meaning that the war was paramount to the survival of the union and thus, one of the most momentous occurrences of American history (Lincoln). Nathaniel Hawthorne, a transcendentalist and author of The Scarlet Letter, cogitated upon the significance of having Lincoln as president during the Civil War while simultaneously conveying the idea that he deeply venerated president Lincoln for his strength of character in times of dire crisis. Hawthorne employs the use of vivid imagery, scintillating diction, striking juxtaposition as well as a reverent tone to effectively accomplish his purpose of conveying the fact that while Lincoln is superficially unprepossessing, his approachable attitude and his insightful nature make him an excellent president.
The authors of the Realism era wrote most of their stories about everyday middle-class people. Many of the authors wanted to write a story that people could relate to, and make them feel like they were actually in their story. In Leo Tolstoy’s, “The Kruetzer Sonata”, Henrik Ibsen’s “A doll house,” and Anton Chekhov’s “Seagull,” all of the authors tell about the actions and choices that each person has in their lives is what will dictate how their lives will draw out. This in very many ways is something that real everyday middle-class people could relate to, and in doing so, hopefully they could take what they have read and apply it to their lives.
Upon hearing of an event which has become known as "The Haymarket Incident," a violent outbreak that involved strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company on May 4, 1886, William Dean Howells felt provoked to respond.1 Whatever personal motives this highly publicized incident sparked in Howells, who was successful novelist and influential critic of the literature and social issues of his time, the strike and subsequent executions of seven of the protesters involved had a trenchant effect on this respected man of letters. Howells illustrated his remorse for what he understood as a profound legal injustice in a letter he wrote to a friend shortly before the hanging of the Haymarket protesters: "It blackens my life. I feel the horror and the shame of the crime which the law is about to commit against justice."2
After World War I, American people and the authors among them were disillusioned by the effects that war had on their society. America required a literature that would expound what had happened and what was happening to their society. The realistic movement of the late 19th century saw authors accurately depict life and its problems. This realistic movement evolved because of many changes and transitions in American culture. In the late 1800's, the United States was experiencing swift growth and change because of a changing economy, society, and culture. The increase of immigrants into America was one of the reasons. Realists endeavored to give a comprehensive picture of modern life by presenting the entire picture. The true definition of literary realism as defined by Encyclopedia Britannica is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Although realism is not limited to any one-century or group of writers, it is most often associated with the literary movement in 19th-century France, specifically with the French novelists Flaubert and Balzac. George Eliot introduced realism into England, and William Dean Howells introduced it into the United States. Realism has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications.
Age of Realism is a literary period that took place in the 19th century. Before Age of Realism came the Age of Romanticism and the Civil war in 1861-1865 triggered the change. Thus it can be said that the Civil War had several effects on the writers in that age. So, in order to understand the way those writers thought, it is necessary to mention several events like the Age of Realism itself, the Civil War and the writers and their lives. After those books are analyzed, there can be seen solid evidences about those effects. For example, the thought of free slaves, which was the one of the main reasons why the Civil War happened, has effected Mark Twain as it seen in his book, Tow Sawyer. Also, most of the writers of the time was alive while the war took place so they have experienced its hardship. Furthermore, it is seen that not only the experience but even the stories were quite effective on the writers; Stephen Crane wrote a book about the Civil War he wasn’t even born yet at the time, and there is William Dean Howells, he was in Paris, far away from America, while the Civil War was occurring. The way they were affected by the war was quite obvious. The romantic novels started to be realist, optimists became pessimist and there was even a naturalist one, Stephen’s novel “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”.
In the aftermath following the American Civil War a new style of writing known as realism emerged. The cause of this emergence is most likely due to the development of the camera. Individuals now had access to detailed photographs that could perfectly capture the details of a moment, which before could only be done through writing. These photographs caused writing to evolve and become more detailed, descriptive, and definitive.
Realism is a style of writing which shows how things are in life. It showed how mostly every person thought life was just perfect. They were not seeing the
Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" is an excellent example of realism. Harte uses realistic characters that use everyday language with a hint of local color from California, which is where the story is set. The characters are put through real situations and faced with troubles that we go through day to day. Bret Harte lived through the California gold rush and was able to create a very realistic setting and characters. Since he actually experienced the culture and people of this time the words create a very detailed picture, and the characters come to life in your
The devices Realism, Modernism, and Naturalism are difficult to explain. Still, I’ll try my best. Both Ralph Ellison and Gwendolyn Brooks utilized the literary device realism in their poem Brooks “Kitchenette Building” and “The Children of the Poor.” To put it plainly Realism deals with reality. In terms of African American literature Urban Realism focused on poor African Americans living Urban settings (ex. Chicago) dealing with the realities of life.
Fiske writes that Watt and Williams “….tend to define it by its content. Watt traces its origins to the rise of the novel in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” And Williams “…whose historical perspective covers the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, lists three main characteristics of realism in drama: he finds that it has a contemporary setting, that it concerns itself with secular action … and that it is “socially extended”.
Realism occurs everyday, one may not know but its the reason why know not everyone gets to live their lives to a happy ending, its the reason why sometimes you can't get everything you want in your life. Realism is the attitude or practice of accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly. Realism is a trend which takes place in the nineteenth century during which literature depicted life "as is," and focuses on real life. This literary movement frequently depicted everyday life; it follows the rule of a phenomenal world and that nothing is added to your life. It is the reverse job of what a filter would do to all the troubles that one may encounter later in life. Realism is represented in Kate Chopin's short stories The Story of an Hour and A Pair of Silk Stockings. In both the short stories, the main characters get to face a dream/fantasy that they’ve always wanted to encounter; something rare that lasted only for a short amount of time. The freedom that each character got was some sort of new freedom that they never experienced before. For example in The Story of an Hour, the main character Louise Mallards is feels oppressed because she can't live for herself. She realizes at the end that her husband was alive the whole time and that her short fantasy came to an end. She thought that it would last forever until the death of her but she was wrong. Another example of realism is A Pair of Silk Stockings, the main character of this story was Little Mrs Sommers. She finds fifteen dollars on the floor and this feeling of having this much money eventually controls her until its all gone. Her lack of being able to control herself and curiosity controls her and the money. W...
Realism started in France in the 1830s. It was very popular there for a long time. A man named Friedrich Schiller came up with the word “realism.” Realism is based on contemporary life. There is a very accurate and honest representation of characters in this style of art. Realism tries to combine romanticism and the enlightenment. Life isn’t just about mind and not just about feelings either, it’s about both feelings and reason together. As said in the na...
Impressionism can be seen as a development which grew out of Realism, but in its turn still had to battle the more popular Romanticism. Realism has never entirely displaced the popular taste for Romantic art, as any number of hotel-room paintings, paperback book covers and calendars testify. It became just one more style among others. In Fiction Realism's most important influences have been on fiction and the theater. It is perhaps unsurprising that its origins can be traced to France, where the dominant official neoclassicism had put up a long struggle against Romanticism. Since the 18th century the French have traditionally viewed themselves as rationalists, and this prevailing attitude in intellectual circles meant that Romanticism led an uneasy existence in France even when allied with the major revolutionary movements of 1789 and 1830. Influence of Realism Realism had profound effects on fiction from places as far-flung as Russia and the Americas.
If it was not for Stephen Crane and his visionary work than American Realism would not have taken hold of the United States during the eighteen hundreds. During the years following the Civil War America was a melting pot of many different writing styles. Many scholars argue that at this time there was still no definite American author or technique. Up to this point authors in the Americas simply copied techniques that were popular in regions of Europe. Stephen Crane came onto the scene with a very different approach to many of his contemporaries. He was a realist, and being such he described actions in a true, unadorned way that portrayed situations in the manner that they actually occurred (Kaplan). He had numerous admired pieces but his most famous work was the Red Badge of Courage (Bentley 103). In this novel he illustrates the accounts of a Union soldier named Henry Fleming. At first the writing was considered too graphic and many people did not buy the book. Eventually the American people changed their opinions and began to gravitate towards Crane’s work. The readers were fascinated by the realistic environment he creates even though he himself had never fought in a war (Bentley 103). By spreading the influence of realistic writing Crane has come to be known as the first American Realist.