What We Are & Who We Should Be: Literary Realism

“True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.” This quote by Jean Cocteau provides an accurate summary of realism in American literature. Authors such as Raymond Carver and William Faulkner strived to expose their readers to defects, either internal or external. Their literature puts humanity under the microscope, and allows the reader to examine their daily life from a safe distance. Under examination, many shortcomings can be uncovered. Occasionally, an author will not only reveal these flaws, but provide a practical solution. More often than not though, realists will leave it up to their reader to formulate a cure.

In A Rose for Emily, Faulkner looks back on the relationships of an aging southern belle, using third and second person narrative to comment on the happenings of the story. The title character of the story, Miss Emily Grierson, has two main relationships in her lifetime. The first, the relationship she had with her father, is described as controlling: “… that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman’s life so many times before had been too virulent and too furious to die.”(Faulkner 162) Emily’s second relationship was of a romantic nature. Her courtship with Homer Barron began with buggy rides through town and ultimately ended with his death at her hands. Even without details, it is plain to see that Emily suffered from a lack of healthy relationships in her lifetime. One present defect in the story is the inability of people to recognize and escape unhealthy relationship patterns.

A Rose for Emily, though written almost thirty years before the development of the concept, tells the story of one woman’s struggle with codependent relationsh...

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...nging, forcing them to create their own cure for what ails society. In theory, this exposure to our many imperfections should create a society of self-improvement oriented individuals. Fortunately, for the modern-day realists, that is not the case, and there are still many more defects to expose to a growing readership.

Works Cited

Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." The Seagull Reader: Stories. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008. 155-64. Print

"Mental Health America: Co-dependency." Mental Health America: Co-dependency. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. .

Klein, Thomas. “The Ghostly Voice of Gossip in Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily’.” Explicator 65.4 (2007): 229-232. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.

Carver, Raymond. "Cathedral." The Seagull Reader: Stories. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008. 84-98. Print