CHAPTER III

THEORY ON SOCIAL REALISM

Literature has thousands of threads which can weave the beautiful piece of
art. Each thread has its own importance in the creative work. In the same way,
there are different narrative techniques for the narration of literature. Among the
narrative techniques, Realism, in literature, 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, especially 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 in literature, an approach that proceeds from an
analysis of reality in terms of natural forces. Realism, a style of writing gives the
impression of recording or reflecting faithfully an actual way of life.
Literature emerges out of life and records dreams and ideas, hopes and
aspirations, failures and disappointments, motives and passions, and experiences
and observations. Over the years, literature has reflected the prevailing social
issues in many eminent works of literature under the shadow of realism. In

Realism, social reality is one aspect of the picture but it cannot be isolated as
though it were an entity by itself. It cannot be taken out of the context of the
general cultural pattern of a period. Even there have been honest attempts to
recreate incidents from great literatures of the past ages. They convey truth, the
truth of emotion, which is the ultimate of realism. This aspect of realism is lacking
in the works of some of the writers. Realism should be truthful and honest picture
of society. It should be true attempt to focus on reality with the concern to make it
superior world.
Realism in literature is the theory or practice of fidelity to nature, or to real
life and to accurate representation without idealization of everyday life. The 18th
century works of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett are among
the earliest examples of realism in English literature. It was consciously adopted as
an aesthetic programme in France in the mid 19th century, when interest arose in
recording previously ignored aspects of contemporary life and society. The realist
emphasis on detachment and objectivity, along with lucid but restrained social
criticism, became integral to the novel in the late 19 th century. The word has also
been used critically to denote excessive minuteness of detail or preoccupation with
trivial, sordid, or squalid subjects. The 20eth century, prevailing models of literary
criticism drew a line between realist and anti-realist literature, placing realist works
on one side of the line and fantastic works on the opposite side. Despite this

inherent questioning of the boundaries and construction of reality, the international

literary scene has been largely uniform in its placement of magical realism in the
anti-realist category, thereby opposing it to realist fiction.
Novel is fiction. Fiction and realism seem like opposites. It is not easy to
separate them in a novel. However, novelists mix fiction with realism to provide
delight and an insight into the facts at the same time; they tend to be fictionally
realistic. New Standard Encyclopedia defines realism as a representation of
objects and conditions in the way they appear to the senses as opposed to the ideal
and fanciful.1 The novel is a picture of real life, manners and the time in which it
is written. Novel gives a familiar relation of such things as they pass every day
before our eyes.
The major tradition of European fiction in the 19 th century is a tradition of
realism. Most of the novels are realistic. Victorian novel is characterized by
realism that the novel by its very definition is a realistic prose fiction, complete in
itself and of a certain length wherein the word realistic is meant to indicate
relevant to real life as opposed to Romantic. But there was a growing
dissatisfaction among the novelists to stick to realism alone. Therefore they have
explored new fictional modes which are discussed earlier as different genres. The
same thing influenced Indian novels. The novelists like K.S.Venkatramani, Mulk

Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K.Narayan changed the condition and adopted realism
with social insight in their novels.
It is the social middle class which provided the most obvious context for the
new Indian Writing in English. That is why Ranga Raos Fowl Filcher (1987) is
able to communicate a vivid sense of rural and provincial life. But Ranga Rao still
acknowledges that the nation itself has moved from the village centrism of the
Gandhian era to the city centrism of the post-Nehru period.2
As it is earlier said, Indian novel is strongly marked by consciousness of the
period in which it is set. Indian novel shows a unique time consciousness. The bulk
of Indian English fiction since its birth has marked time with the period it chose to
depict rather in an ostentatious way. Tagores Home and the World would not have
been possible without an awareness of the terrorist movement in Bengal during the
First World War years. There is change in the scenario after independence; the
novelists crave to depict the life of people with background. They found that the
personal life of a man tends to be formulated by fixed patterns, loosely described
as customs which are peculiar to particular castes. The novelists tended to stress
the peculiarities of human life to bring home the difference as well as aliveness of
life. They treated the themes like poverty, starvation, famine, hunger, caste system,
womens position in society and peoples economic condition.

Realism in art and literature is an endeavor to portray life as it is. It shows

life with reality, omitting nothing that is ugly or painful, and idealizing nothing. To
the realists, the writers most important function is to describe as truthfully as
possible what is observed though the senses. Realism began as a recognizable
movement in art in the 18th century. By the mid 19th century, it was a principal art
form. In past, realism has been an upheaval against classicism and romanticism artistic movements characterized by works that idealize life. Classicism shows life
as being more rational and orderly than it really is; while Romanticism shows life
as being more emotionally exciting and satisfying that it normally is. While it was
an attempt through realism to present life as it is. This life as it is is what realism
is. True realism depicts man and society as complete entities instead of showing
merely one or the other of their aspects. It is not just an echo but the real sound of
an individual or society or joint voice of their being. Thus, it is very much true
what Mulk Raj Anand, a great realist in fiction accepts that the novelist must
confront the total reality, including its sordidness, if one was to survive in the
world of tragic contrasts between the exalted and noble vision of the blind bard
Milton to encompass the eyes dimmed with tears of the many mute Miltons.
Among the Indian English novelists, Mulk Raj Anand is the best example of
writers who dealt with the themes of untouchability, economic inequality and
social injustice. Raja Rao, Manohar Malgaonkar, R.K.Narayan, K.Nagaraj and

many other novelists depicted social life in their novels. Their novels present a
convincing picture of life and creat an awareness of the basic values of life. There
was a strain of social existence in the novels of the earlier novelists. Social Realism
is not a new concept in Indian fiction.
A realistic novel is more or less not for the sake of art, but for the sake of life
of an individual or a mass presented by a common character as one finds in
Dickens Hard Times or Mulk Raj Anands Untouchable, which make reality more
real for the sake of life. Quite a few of the Indian English novelists try to give a
graphic picture of the contemporary rural or urban scene. They have, to some
extent, been instrumental in adding another dimension to the awareness and
insight. In a realistic novel one can easily transfer ones own identity to some of
the characters and derive vicarious pleasure out of this identification. While
continuing to live ones own life one shares to the full the experiences of the
characters in the novel - thus enriching ones own personality. With the finding for
the realism or realistic aspects of Anand, it is also very important to look into the
contemporary social, political, religious, traditional, cultural and economical issues
in India. As it is a representation of the real social life of India, it is counted as a
social document painted with rustic brush and dipped into the colour of social and
religious layers.

Social Realism developed as a reaction against idealism and the exaggerated

ego encouraged by Romanticism. The consequences of the industrial revolution
became an apparatus; urban centers grew, slums proliferated on a new scale
contrasting with the display of wealth of the upper classes with a new sense of
social consciousness and the social realists pledged to fight the beautiful art, any
style which appeared to the eye or emotions. They focused on the ugly realities of
contemporary life and sympathized with working-class people, particularly the
poor. They recorded what they saw, as it is existed, in a dispassionate manner.
Social is an omnibus word covering all aspects of human activity that
display an awareness of others. Simply speaking Social Realism is an
extraordinary reach of understanding of social life. Still better, it is an intellectual
power of probing into the nature and function of society, its various institutions
and traditions, and their functioning. It is an intellectual penetration of social
process.
Social Realism involves individual, social and cultural changes in all the
spheres of life with their intricacies, and nuances: facts relating to family, the class,
the marriage, the school, the politics, the inter-relation, economy, morality,
religion, and educational standards. It relates more to social readjustments and
social maladjustments such as unemployment, youth unrest, industrial indiscipline,
crime, war and their causes and consequences.

Social Realism is a keen depiction of social condition. It implies a moral

awareness also. Social insight is a heightened consciousness or comprehensive
understanding of the social and cultural milieu - a sense of social fact. Socially
conscious refers to an awareness inspired by a social ideology. It implies extreme
social involvement and commitment to the socialist programme. Social Realism
includes social consciousness, social sense and experience and social insight. It is
an all embracing term, indicating sound and systematic grasp of the socio-political
web, all rolled into one. Social Realism unravels the layer within layers of the
social fabric through fictional medium. By choosing an appropriate story,
characters, language and fictional technique, the novelist aims to present the
multifarious aspects of society and its complex functioning. Social Realism is not
just realism represented in novels. It is, on the other hand, the novelists way of
dealing with realism or sometimes dealing with social facts and events of society
for his novels sake. In the novelists hands it remains a technique by which truth is
represented in an artistic way.
There is difference between social realism and socialist realism. The word
realist characterizes that artist whose temperamental preoccupation is with
revelation of the actual spirit of life, character and thought with a view to enlighten
him and others. The main difference between social realism and socialist realism is
between is and should be. Social Realism means the depiction in literature of

social reality as it is; there should be a point one to one correspondence between
the society depicted in literature and the real actual society. Socialist Realism
means the depiction of the social reality not as it is but as it should be, idealized.
Socialist Realism demanded that all art must depict some aspect of mans struggle
toward socialist progress for a better life. It stressed the need for the creative artist
to serve the proletariat by being realistic, optimistic and heroic. The doctrine
considered all forms of experimentalism as degenerate and pessimistic. Socialist
Realism had its roots in neoclassicism and the traditions of realism in Russian
literature of the 19th century that described the life of simple people.
The term Social Realism describes both a specific stylistic approach and an
overall attitude towards subject matter. Its primary goal is not to amuse but to
convince the observer of the evils. It aims at the unadorned depiction of the
contemporary social life in its various aspects. Society is a fluid entity. Its truthful,
historically concrete representation with revolutionary development becomes the
real depiction of social panorama.
The novels selected for the study aim at probing the social milieu
systematically through the fictional medium, using appropriate story, characters
and fictional technique. These novels reveal that the writers of each novel evince
social involvement in a measure proportionate to the degree of their artistic and
emotional involvement with society.

Notes
1

New Standard Encyclopedia (Chicago: 1980) 89.

H.Trivedi, The St. Stephens Factor, Indian Literature Sept. - Oct.

1991: 108.