Unit 6 18651915 Realism and the Frontier

1
Unit 6 - 1865-1915Realism and the Frontier

• America was changing dramatically in the late
  19th century and early 20th century -- the Civil
  War was becoming a hazy memory
• The American Frontier no longer existed by 1915 -
  this did not stem western migration
• railroads bridged the continent
• the Wright Brothers took their first aircraft
  aloft at Kitty Hawk, NC in 1903

2
History Overview (contd.)

• Science and industry were making great leaps
  forward as was literature (after relative quiety
  of post-war years -- an impressive array of
  writers began to appear
• Prewar Romantic writers were still widely read
  but most new writers were not Romantics. The new
  writers wanted to portray life as it was lived,
  not sentimentally or in flights of fancy. Goal
  was REALISM or Naturalism or Regionalism.

3
History Overview (contd.)

• Between 1865-1915 U.S. population grew by more
  than 42 million people (due to new immigration)
• before 1880 most immigrants came from Western
  Europe and the Scandinavian countries
• in the 1880s immigrants came from Southern and
  Eastern Europe (Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia)

4
History Overview (contd.)

• Population in older cities, Boston/Baltimore,
  tripled and quadrupled
• Chicago and Detroit also skyrocketed
• Major, new cities sprung up (Denver - in 1858 60
  crude log cabins, due to Pikes Peak Gold Rush, 3
  years later, Denvers population was 3,000
  people) By 1890 the population of Denver
  exceeded 100,000

5
A Nation of the Move

• Advances in transportaiton
• Mark Twain traveled - this kind of movement
  helped to shape both the subject matter and the
  attitudes of writers in this period - Roughing
  It
• writers now writing about and representing the
  mid-west and far west
• Bret Harte (moved from NYC to CA)
• Willa Cather (moved from VA to Nebraska) A
  Wagner Matinee
• Jack London (native CA) To Build A Fire (1897
  prospected for gold in Alaska, his early novels
  were set in Alaska, not in CA)

6
Frontier Experience

• 1827 President John Quincy Adams
• frontier dwellers were generally mobile,
  practical, inventive, deomocratic and optimistic
• Mark Twains writing showed all 5 traits
• BUT, the Frontier was not an idyllic existence
  could be lonely and cruel

7
Problems

• Along with rapid industrialization came problems
• urban slums
• farming problems
• labor unrest
• The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley
  Warner dealt with unrestrained greed in a time
  of financial speculation and uncertain moral
  values

8
Problems (contd.)

• MUCKRAKERS uncovered the dirt of American
  life and reported on it.
• Ida Tarbell - exposed unethical business
  practices
• Lincoln Steffens - attacked corruption in city
  and state governments

9
National Diversity

• Depression in 1893
• farmers faced failing agriculturral prices, high
  interest rates on bank loans, unequal railroad
  shipping charges
• after centuries of conflict, Native American
  Tribes had been defeated
• Slaves had been freed but had not been made full
  participants in American Deomocracy
• Restrictive immigration laws prohibited Chinese
  workers from entering the U.S. after 1882
• European immigrants often worked long hours in
  sweatshops and lived in slums
• Women were not allowed to vote in national
  elections

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National Diversity (contd.)

• Literature reflected this diversity as well as
  the promise and problems of the frontier and
  industry

11
Realism in American Literature

• the buoyant spirits of Emerson and the wild
  imaginings of Poe seemed out of date to many
  after the war, especially to the young writers
• Realistic writers saw themselves as being in
  revolt against Romanticism
• The Deerslayer by Mark Twain was target towards
  James Fenimore Cooper
• Eugene Field, Chicago journalist, had the
  opposite view and took humorous jabs at the
  Realists (especially Hamlin Garland) His
  heroines eat cold huckleberry pie and his heros
  sweat and do not wear socks

12
Realism (contd.)

• European Realistic writers Balzac, Stendhal,
  Flaubert
• Not only did European influences help, American
  writers had plenty of material on their own, plus
  the objectivity of science played a part
• 1885 The Rise of Silas Lepham by William Dean
  Howells -- in 1891 he described his theory of
  Realism in Criticism and Fiction
• other Realists Stephen Crane, Hamlin Garland

13
Naturalism

• One step beyond Realism, influenced by French
  writer Emile Zola - a writer must examine people
  and society objectively and, like a scientist,
  draw conclusions from what is observed
• viewed reality as the inescapable working out of
  natural forces One destiny is decided by
  heredity and enviornment, physical drives and
  economic circumstances (tended to be pessimistic
  writers)

14
Naturalism (contd.)

• 1893 Stephen Crane Maggie A Girl of the Streets
• Jack London To Build A Fire (man at the mercy of
  the brutal forces of nature)
• Frank Norris The Octopus (struggles between wheat
  growers and an all-powerful railroad in San
  Joaquin Valley, CA)

15
Regionalism

• Also known as the Local Color Movement
• through use of regional dialects and vivid
  descriptions of landscape, Regionalists captured
  the essence of life in different regions
• Mark Twain The Notorious Jumping Frog of
  Calaveras County
• Bret Harte (considered founder of the local color
  movement) The Outcasts of Poker Flat
• George Washington Cable (wrote about Creole life
  in Louisiana

16
Regionalism (contd.)

• This movement could have come about because
  people wanted to learn more about others (also
  due to the advances in transportation)
• Edward Eggleston, The Hoosier Schoolmaster
  (backwoods Indiana)
• Sarah Orne Jewett - The County of the Pointed
  Firs
• Mary Wilkins Freeman (rural New England)
• Kate Chopin (Louisiana) Creole and Cajun life

17
Poets of the Time

• Stephen Crane - short, spare, untitle
  fables/riddles
• Sidney Lanier - fused musical and poetic
  principles
• Paul Laurence Dunbar - used black dialect and
  folklore
• Edwin Arlington Robinson - The Children of the
  Night, 1897 (contains unforgettable
  psychological portraits of people)
• Edgar Lee Masters - Spoon River Anthology

18
Poets of the Time (contd.)

• James Whitcomb Riley - Rustic Hoosier dialect
  Little Orphant Annie, Knee Deep in June
• Eugene Field, Denver journalist, Little Boy
  Blue, Whynken, Blynken and Nod
• Edwin Markam - The Man With The Hoe (Oregon)
• Joaquin Miller Columbus (Oregon)

19
Famous Short Story Writers

• William Sydney Porter (O Henry) - portrayed N.Y.
  City, uses surprise endings, worked within a
  customary plot structure with certain familiar
  character types, settings and situations
• Dime Store Novels (Westerns)
• Owen Wister - The Virginian, 1902

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VOCABULARY

• Humor writing that is intended to evoke
  laughter
• Narration writing that tells a story (fictional
  often inspired by real life events OR factual
  some details are fictionalized or exaggerated)
• Regionalism habits, speech, appearance, customs
  and beliefs of people from one geographical
  region often differ from those of people from
  other areas

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VOCABULARY (contd.)

• Point of View refers to the vantage point or
  perspective from which a narrative is told
• Imagery words or phrases that create mental
  pictures or images, that appeal to one or more of
  the five senses
• Irony contrast between what is stated and what
  is meant or between what is expected to happen
  and what actually happens
• Characterization the means by which a writer
  reveals a characters personality

22
VOCABULARY (contd.)

• Conflict a struggle between two opposing forces
  or characters, plays a vital role in the plot
  development
• Realism literary movement that emerged as a
  reaction against Romanticism
• Naturalism major literary movement of the late
  19th century and early 20th century, grew out of
  Realism
• Sound Devices gives writing a musical quality -
  4 most frequently used alliteration,
  consonance, assonance, internal rhyme

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VOCABULARY (contd.)

• Tone writers attitude toward his or her
  subject, characters or audience
• Sonnet a 14-line lyric poem, usually written in
  rhymed iambic pentameter (verse with 5 feet per
  line, each foot consisting of an unstressed
  syllable followed by a stressed syllable). A
  sonnet usually expresses a single complete idea
  or theme
• Speaker voice of the poem

Notes gathered from textbook, The American
Experience, Prentice Hall