Chapter VII The Realistic Period
Chapter VII The Realistic Period
1. Realism
In literature, the term is used to identify a literary movement
in Europe and the United States in the last half of the 19th
century and the early years of the 20th century. But the practice
of realism has a long history and can be traced back to ancient
times. As Aristotle pointed out in his on poetics, Sophocles
depicts what he thinks man should be like, while Euripides
describes people as what they really are. This is the fundamental
difference between romanticism and realism/
Realism, as a literary movement, is usually called critical
realism, for it rose as a reaction to the social reality round
about the 1830s, when the capitalist system was established
successively in European countries after the bourgeois revolution.
With the development of capitalism, the class contradictions,
especially that between the workers and capitalists, were becoming
increasingly intense. The ruthless exploitation and suppression of
the capital left the working class living in overwhelming poverty,
which resulted in series of proletarian revolutions against
capitalism. The revolutions started in France in 1848 and swept
over the other European countries later on. But they all failed
because of lack of strong leading nuclear powers. The failure
brought about a time of disillusionment and loss of hope and a
literary revolution against the false imagination and sentimentary
of Romanticism. The need was left for a return to what was plain
and real. Therefore the name realism was given to the new movement
in literature
2 Features of Critical Realism
Critical realism mainly featured in the following ways.
a.Critical realism succeeded the literary method of traditional
realism, which is characterized by the verisimilitude of detail
derived from observation and objective description of the typical
character in the typical circumstances.
b. By depicting the typical character in the typical
circumstances, critical realists exposed the social contradictions
of capitalism, criticized the corruption and ugliness of the
bourgeoise world, and provided a vivid picture of the capitalist
society.
c. Critical realists had their own limitations. They criticized
capitalism from a democratic and humanistic viewpoint. They
regarded the evils of capitalism just as the ugly practice against
human nature. Thus their works pointed toward moral evolution and
reform rather than revolution. They showed profound sympathy for
the common people, but did not find them a way out.
d. The language used by critical realists was usually simple,
clear and direct, and their tone was often satiric.
3. Historical Backgrounds of American Realism
a. American Realism rose with the Civil War. After four years of
fighting, the industrialized north defeated the agrarian south and
the United States headed toward capitalism.
b. In post-war America, commerce took the lead in the national
economy. Increasing industrialization and mechanization soon
produced extremes of wealth and poverty. Beneath the glittering
surface of prosperity lay suffering and unhappiness.
Disillusionment and frustration were widely felt. What had been
expected to be a Golden Age turned out to be Mark Twains
Gildedone.
c. Added to this was the fact that the frontier was closing. The
frontier had been a factor of great importance in American life. As
long as the frontier was there, people could always hope to escape
troubles over the next hill and have a better life ahead. Now that
the frontier was about to close and people had no shelter to find
but to reexamine life. The war and the post-war dazzling wealth and
poverty taught people that life, man, and God were not so good as
assumed by the Transcendentalists. Against the daydream of
romanticism appeared a good number of realistic writers like
William Dean Howells, Henry James, and Mark Twain, who exposed life
to board daylight.
4. Features of American Realism
a.American realism first appeared in local colorism, which
stressed the realistic presentation of the local characters with
their regional qualities such as dialects and customs. The
representatives are Bred Hart, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain
etc, who provided regional stories and tales of the life of
Americas Westerners, Southerners, and Easterners.
b. Most American realists found their subject matter in the
experiences of the American middle class, describing their houses,
families, and jobs, their social customs, achievements and
failures. They intended to limit themselves to optimistic treatment
of the surface of life, like Howells, who called for the treatment
of the smiling aspects of life, insisting that America was truly a
land of hope. While the greatest of Americas realists, Henry James
and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal of 19th
America. James probed deeply at the individual psychology of his
characters, writing in a rich and intricate style that supported
his intense scrutiny of complex human experience. Mark Twain,
breaking out of the narrow limits of local color fiction, described
the breadth of America experience as no one had ever done before,
or since.
c. American realism developed into naturalism at the end of the
century. Naturalism, like realism, is a literary movement that
began in France in the middle of the 19th century. Naturalists
attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness and
emphasizes the helpless brutal struggle of the low social and
economic classes for survival in a cold world full of crushing
forces of environment and heredity. American naturalism stressed
the animality of man, his insignificance in a cold world, and his
lack of dignity in face of the blind forces of nature. The
pessimism and deterministic ideas of naturalism pervaded the works
of such writers as Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, and Stephen
Crane.
