English and

American
Literature –
REALIST
Hazel Ansula
Analie Singgit
 Gallery Walk Activity

• There are several quotes posted on the board. Find a partner and discuss all quotes.
• Select 1 quote and individually respond to the quote you have selected. ( What ideas does the author
convey?)
• Write your response to the QUOTE which stood out the most to you on the paper provided.
• Stick your response on the appropriate wall underneath the quote you have selected.
• Follow up question: What ideas about do the authors exhibited in the gallery walk convey? What do
they reveal about the “real” conditions during the period of American history?
 REALISM

• THE PERIOD OF AMERICAN LITERATURE FROM THE BEGINNING

OF THE CIVIL WAR (1861) TO THE BEGINNING OF WORLD WAR I
(1914)
• BROADLY DEFINED AS "THE FAITHFUL REPRESENTATION OF
REALITY" OR "VERISIMILITUDE”.
• REACTION TO AND A REJECTION OF ROMANTICISM, WITH ITS
EMPHASIS ON EMOTION, IMAGINATION, AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
 REALISM

• Artists and writers strove for detailed realistic and factual

description.
• This form of literature believes in fidelity to actuality in its
representation.
• Aims to interpret the actualities of any aspect of life, free
from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic color.
Emergence of American Realism

• the United States experienced huge industrial, economic,

social and cultural change.
• the country's immigrant population and working base grew.
• People left rural homes for opportunities in urban cities.
• the U.S. economy became more focused on factory production
Emergence of American Realism

• The writing during this period was very regional.

• American realists built their plots and characters around
people's ordinary, everyday lives.
• Their works contained regional dialects and extensive
dialogue which connected well with the public
 Main themes/topics addressed by Writers

  Commentary on current Commentary on actions or

Rejection of
events at time, i.e. war or morals of particular social
Romanticism
movement class

Desire to thoroughly explore negative realities of

life, such as poverty, death, and discrimination
General Characteristics of
Realism
 Transparent Language

• Used ordinary language in writing

• The use of symbolism is controlled and limited

Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was

revolutionary in its use of ordinary, spoken language—
including slang and ungrammatical usages—in the
narration of a tale.
 Verisimilitude

• Great emphasis on truth and reality

• Attention to specific facts and details adds to the sense
of verisimilitude in the fictional works.

Leo Tolstoy creates verisimilitude when writing about

warfare and battlefields in War and Peace .
 Genre

• Novel is the genre most closely associated with the rise

of Realism as a movement.
• Realistic novels avoid the sensational, dramatic elements
of naturalistic novels and romances.

In Tolstoy's gigantic novel War and Peace, there are over

500 different characters.
 Quotidian

• Literature reflects the true, daily reality of life.

Gustave Flaubert's heroine Emma Bovary reflecting on how

dull daily life (from Madame Bovary)
 Character

• Placed an emphasis on characters

• Realists often starts with analyzing the psychological
reality of individual people.
•  Character, not plot, is the essence of Realism.
 Social Critique

• Realist writers are all about critiquing the social and

political conditions of the worlds they write about 

•Authors like Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, and Honoré de

Balzac, depicted economic and social inequalities in their
novels as a way of raising awareness about the plight of poor
people or about the inequalities that affect women.
 Class

• Class and society are prevalent themes

• Explores everyday lives of middle class and sometimes lower
class.

Leo Tolstoy delving into the nuances of class etiquette in 

Anna Karenina.
Realistic Techniques

• Settings thoroughly familiar to the writer

• Plots emphasizing the norm of daily experience
• Ordinary characters, studied in depth
• Complete authorial objectivity
• Responsible morality; a world truly reported
Literary Writers and their
works
 Samuel L. Clemens(1835-1910)

His famous pen name is • an honorary doctorate

“Mark Twain” from Yale University in
1901
• an honorary doctorate
He wrote a total of 28
from Oxford University
books along with
in 1907.
essays, articles, and
short stories.
 - The book is noted
for its colorful
description of people
and places along the
Mississippi River.
- Set in a Southern
antebellum society
that had ceased to
exist about twenty
years before the work
was published.
- Adventures of
Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Huckleberry Finn is an
Mark Twain, first published in the United often scathing satire
Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United on entrenched
States in February 1885. attitudes, particularly
racism.
 IDEALIZATION OF THE
“COMMON MAN”
William Dean Howells (1837-1920)

TWAIN AND HOWELLS

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM SYNOPSIS

FROM RAGS TO RICHES

A BAREFOOTED SON OF A POOR FARMER IN VERMONT, SILAS
BECOMES A SELFMADE MAN IN BOSTON

IN THE MOMENT OF HIS GREATEST SUCCESS, HE KICKED OUT

HIS PARTNER ROGERS, BUT IS HAUNTED BY REMORSE
AFTERWARDS.
WHEN THE PAINT FACTORY GOES BANCRUPT, SILAS REJECTS AN
IMMORAL OFFER THAT MIGHT AVERT HIS FINANCIAL RUIN

THE NOVEL’S CLIMAX: A DINNER PARTY AT THE COREYS.

LAPHAM GETS DRUNK AND MORTIFIES THE REFINED SOCIETY
WITH COARSE VOCABULARY AND RUDE BEHAVIOR.
 • Graduated • First job: writing for the
valedictorian from local newspaper called
Washington Female “The Intelligencer”
Seminary in
Pennsylvania.

• pioneer of literary • Major themes on her

realism in American writings are feminism and
literature immigrants.

• American author and • Major work: “Life in

Rebecca Harding Davis journalist the Iron Mills”
(1831-1910)
 Deborah brings Hugh his dinner at the iron mill.
Deborah picks Mitchell's pocket and gives the money to Hugh.

Hugh and Deborah are arrested and sentenced for theft.

Unable to face imprisonment, Hugh commits suicide.

The Quaker woman promises to bury Hugh in the country.

Deborah goes to live with Quakers in the country.

 Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850),

Two works
of 1829 that
brought
Balzac to
the brink of
success

regarded as the founder of social realism

• Father Goriot is one of the best-known and most
influential novels of Balzac’s vast collection The
Human Comedy. 
• It was first published in 1835 and tells the story of
the education of the young Eugène de Rastignac, as
well as the tragic decline of Father Goriot.
• The novel contains many of the features which
became hallmarks of Balzac’s works, including
characters who recur in several books, a
preoccupation with money, all-consuming passions
and a depiction of young heroes and beautiful
women belonging to the upper-class society of the
time.
 Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

French novelist of the regarded as a genius

realist period and the most
influential French
Realist.
• "Madame Bovary" represents a story of a
woman suffering from her character, from her
sensibility.
• The story of Emma Bovary is mournful and
moral; we can make many opinions about it.
• You can say that Emma Bovary ruined herself,
her husband, her daughter Berthe and her
father, pure Roualt, because of her great desire
of splendor, comfort and amusements.
Activity

– The class will be divided in to groups

– Excerpts from a specific literary text will be presented and assigned to a specific group.
– The group will analyze the text assigned to them using the different characteristics of realism.
– The group should present and share their work to the class.