RealismRegionalismNaturalism

Edith WhartonKate Chopin

Charlotte Perkins GilmanMary E. Wilkins Freeman

Ambrose BierceBret Harte

Jack LondonMark Twain

Remember the Romantics?

1828-1865 Included Transcendentalists and

Anti-Transcendentalists Included Emerson, Thoreau,

Whitman, Hawthorne, and Poe Believed in the individual,

emphasized the imagination, emotions, and creativity, etc.

Now, on the Realists…

Edith Wharton

a good transition from Romanticism to Realism & Regionalism

Ethan Frome shows harsh realities of life in a small town in the East

Ethan is a Transcendentalist (in some ways) who is affected by harsh realities of life

Realism & Realists

1865-1910Reaction against Romanticism

Turned from strange things to ordinary things (a slice of life and how life is really lived)

Realism

any effort to offer an accurate and detailed portrayal of actual life

based on careful observation of life (often

focused on middle & lower classes)

What does Realism mean?

“Let fiction cease to lie about life; let it portray men and women as they really are.”

“Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.”

--William Dean Howells

(1837 –1920)

American realist author and literary critic

Realism

Finds the drama and tension beneath the ordinary surface of life

Believed that humanity’s freedom of choice is limited by the power of outside forces

Realism

Realist authors are more descriptive than symbolic.

Readers were attracted to the realists because they saw their own struggles in print. They also had little patience for the slow-paced narratives, allegory, and symbolism of the Romantics writers (can you relate?).

Realists’ writing was often regional.

Regionalism

accurately represents the speech, manners, habits,

history, folklore, and beliefs of people in

specific geographic areas

Regionalism

Because America was leaping into a new modern

age with the industrial revolution (standardization, mass production of goods, etc.), people feared that

local folkways and traditions would soon be forgotten.

Connection: Realism & Regionalism

Responding to these sentiments, realistic writers set their stories in specific American regions, rushing to capture the “local color” before it was lost.

Regionalism grew out of Realism

Local Color

Captures the special atmosphere of the area and its people

Often contains regional dialects, well-known places, customs, etc. of a particular area

Because of lack of communication and transportation, it shows how people lived in other parts of the country

Naturalists

1900-1914 Extension of Realism A reaction against the emphasis

on the “ordinary” lives realist writers portrayed

Naturalist writers insisted that the extraordinary is real, too.

Naturalism

offshoot of Realism; sought to describe people and

events realistically; emphasizes how instinct

and environment influence human behavior; the fate of

humans is beyond individual control

Naturalists

Instead of middle-class realities, naturalists wrote about the fringes of society—the criminal, the fallen,

the down-and-out.

Naturalists Were Darwinists—they believed that

individuals have no choice in life because a person’s life is dictated by heredity and the external environment

We inherit compulsive instincts such as hunger, the drive to accumulate possessions, and sexuality; and then we are subject to the social and economic forces in the family, class and surroundings into which we were born.

In other words, people are caught within the

forces of nature or society that are beyond their understanding or

control

Naturalism

Facts-only approach (avoids idealistic solutions to problems)

“Brutal Realism” The protagonist, a pawn to multiple

compulsions, usually disintegrates, or is wiped out, by the end of the story.

Aimed at bettering the world through social reform (bringing a situation to the eyes of the public so as to improve it)

Realism- any effort to offer and accurate and detailed portrayal of actual life based on careful observation of life (often focused on middle & lower classes)

Regionalism- accurately represents the speech, manners, habits, history, folklore, and beliefs of people in specific geographic areas

Naturalism- offshoot of Realism; sought to describe people and events realistically; emphasizes how instinct and environment influence human behavior

Genre American Author

(s)

Perceived the

individualas…

Presents life as…

Freedom of

choice?

ROMANTICS

Transcendentalists

R. W. EmersonH.D. ThoreauWalt Whitman

A god We would have it

be, want it to be

Do whatev

er pleases you –

limitless

possibilities

Dark Romantics Nathaniel Hawthorne

Edgar Allan Poe

Filled with the

potential for sin

Potentially dark

Choice possible, but tends to the dark side

REALISTS

Realists/Regionalists

Edith WhartonMark Twain

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Mary Wilkins Freeman

Ambrose Bierce

Simply a person

As it really is

Choices are limited

by outside forces (class, race, etc.)

Naturalists/Regionalists

Kate ChopinJack London

A helpless object

Determined only

by heredity and environ-ment

No choices – we are

pawns of our

background and

current environ-ment

American Realist Authors:

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne

Clemens)

New York

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Mary Wilkins Freeman

New Jersey

Realist authors who were

Naturalists:

Kate Chopin

Missouri

Jack London

Northern California

London was the first American author to make a million dollars from his writing. He was also known to drink a quart of whiskey/day, which caused him to have numerous accidents, including once falling off of a pier into the San Francisco Bay.

Bret Harte

Surrey, England

Ambrose Bierce

Mexico—his actual death date and place are unknown