REalism essay

y 2014

Realism Essay

American Realism came about as a rejection of romanticism, focusing on the scientific study and the influence of rational philosophy. Realism became prominent around the time of the Civil War and ended toward the beginning of the 19th century. Hugh Holman and William Harmon both describe Realism in their novel A Handbook to Literature as, "Where the romanticists transcend the immediate to find the actual or superficial to find the scientific laws that control its actions, realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable consequence" (428). Charles W. Chesnutt, Frederick Douglass, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are all American Realist authors who portray the culture of the people they're around through their stories. The common theme amongst these authors is the struggle the characters go through and the course in which they overcome it.

These three authors have parallel backgrounds that show why he or she would write the way he or she does. Charles Chesnutt, the son of slaves, later on in his life broke out of the stereotypical “slave jobs” and began a teaching career. In 1883, he established his own core reporting firm in which he wrote about the struggles of black Americans that he witnessed. From a writer of the Encylcopedia of American Literature, Jacobe describes Chesnutt as, “Chesnutt is recognized as an innovator in the traditions of African American literature, including the use of dialect and the early use of magical realism”. For instance, in one of his collections, "The Conjure Woman", which is told by a free slave to a white couple from the North who were considering moving to the South, addresses racial issues in th...

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...is time period through that of a woman who is considered delusion as she tries to voice her views.

The American Realist Movement introduced various kinds of writing that were different from those that came from other movements such as Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Modernism, and Naturalism. Realism is drastically different in that the stories that fall under this category are rather different from eachother. For instance, all the stories during the Romanticism period were just that, romantic. However, that is not the case when dealing with Realism. During the Realism era, the stories that were introduced were real. They involved all different kinds of aspects from social class, religion, to suffering. The topics of these stories weren’t one general concept, rather they were an amalgamation of various ideas to represent what was actually happening in their lives.