Realism &
Naturalism
Justyna Rapacz and Rachel Vongvilay
AP Literature and Composition
Period 14-15
Defining Realism/Naturalism
1865-1914
Grand Scheme of Things...
-Realism and Naturalism strive to portray
things as they are
-Present life as anyone might see it
-Without idealization and emotional
involvement
History; Civil War
● Result of post-civil war (1861-1865)
● Loss of hope when people exposed to brutal reality
● Created a “down to earth” demand where literature
no longer idealized people or places
● Time of healing and rebuilding
History; Industrial Revolution
● Inventions and new technology spurred factory work
→ books, paintings about factory workers
● Urbanization: city life- new problems, new society
● Mass production of goods, standardized changed old
traditions… no longer an agriculturally driven society
● Urbanization: city life- new economic and social
problems
→ women working, rise of middle class,
factory conditions
History; Media
● muckrakers: journalists and novelists who exposed
corruption and captured reality
→ people were able to see their struggles in print
● expressed social and philosophical concerned
caused by materialism and technology
Philosophy
● August Comte (1798-1857): Father of Sociology
→ encouraged cause and effect of nature
-Naturalism
● Charles Darwin (1809-1882): Origin of Species (1859)
→ “survival of the fittest”
-people controlled by heredity and environment
● Karl Marx (1818): Marxism
→ equal distribution of money, against urbanization
-social class
Tenet Time…
Get ready to take notes!
Tenet #1
● Realism strives to represent a “slice of life”
-Verisimilitude emphasis
-Plausible events
-Documented history to shed light on issues & concerns
shift:
creativity → capture reality
Connection
Upton Sinclair reveals the unsanitary and sickening practices in the
meatpacking industry throughout The Jungle.
“They put him in a place where the snow could not beat in, where
the cold could not eat through his bones; they brought him food and
drink—why, in the name of heaven, if they must punish him, did
they not put his family in jail and leave him outside—why could they
find no better way to punish him than to leave three weak women
and six helpless children to starve and freeze?” (Sinclair).
Dunbar?
Tenet #2
● First time literature focused on social class and
its effect on individuals
-emergence of middle class & their aspirations
-immigration
-urbanization
shift: no class → emergence of middle class
Connection
Sinclair showcases the lives of immigrants in America and their struggle to
live in a society with an emphasis on social class.
“...he would dress differently, and live in another part of the town, and come
to work at a different hour of the day, and in every way make sure that he
never rubbed elbows with a laboring man. Perhaps this was due to the
repulsiveness of the work; at any rate, the people who worked with their
hands were a class apart, and were made to feel it” (Sinclair).
Dunbar?
Tenet #3
● Literature explored new social conduct
-relationships
-materialism and greed
-women and minorities/workplace
shift: traditional → more modern social views
Connection
In The Jungle, it is shown that it wasn’t unusual for women to be
working, but it was still more ideal for women to remain at home.
“Jurgis was determined that Teta Elzbieta should stay at home to
keep house, and that Ona should help her. He would not have Ona
working – he was not that sort of a man, he said, and she was not
that sort of a woman. It would be a strange thing if a man like him
could not support the family, with the help of the board of Jonas and
Marija” (Sinclair).
Dunbar?
Tenet #4
● Awareness of environment and
concentration on heredity
-philosophical ideas about how they affect
people and their passions
-”survival of the fittest”
shift: religious views → science
Charles Darwin
“False facts are highly injurious to the progress of
science, for they often endure long; but false views, if
supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every
one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.”
Dunbar?
Tenet #5
● Simple, honest diction is used
-satirical, matter-of-fact tone
-little elaboration
-uses dialect, slang, & natural language
shift: exaggerated emotion → simple,
less dramatized
Connection
In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, characters use
dialect that are realistic in diction and grammar. Jim
the slave is a less educated character who uses slang
and improper grammar: “Say, who is you? Whar is you?
Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's
gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell
I hears it ag'in” (Twain 5).
Dunbar?
Tenet #6
● Divergence from religion
-rapid social shifts
-sought truth, not religion
shift: Religious/Spiritual → Inner Spirituality
Connection
Mark Twain satirizes religion and describes its values as
nonbeneficial and unimportant: “Next Sunday we all went to church,
about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns
along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood
them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It
was pretty ornery preaching—all about brotherly love, and such-like
tiresomeness.…” (Twain 109).
Dunbar?
Famous Authors & BOOKS!
Now for our activity…
We will give two passages and you have to
differentiate which one is realism writing and
which one is not.
You get a special surprise if you are able to
guess the title of the Realism book!
1. “Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his
bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief
hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom."
2. “It tells us in a ringing anthem, like heavenly hosts uplifted,
That the rhapsody of the pastoral is out to lunch.
We can take it from there.”
Answers
Correct: the second excerpt (“Realism”: Tom
Clark)
Incorrect: the first excerpt (“Sonnet 116”:
William Shakespeare)
"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He used to lay
drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a year
or more."...
"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."
Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my
mark on the paper.
"Next we began to sail up the narrow strait lamenting. For on the one hand lay
Scylla, and on the other mighty Charybdis in terrible wise sucked down the salt sea
water. As often as she belched it forth, like a cauldron on a great fire she would
seethe up through all her troubled deeps, and overhead the spray fell on the tops of
either cliff.
Answers
Correct: first excerpt (Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn: Mark Twain)
Incorrect: second excerpt (The Odyssey:
Homer)
1. My father calls the Dauntless “hellions.” They are pierced, tattooed, and black-clothed.
Their primary purpose is to guard the fence that surrounds our city. From what, I don’t
know. They should perplex me. I should wonder what courage—which is the virtue they
most value—has to do with a metal ring through your nostril. Instead my eyes cling to
them wherever they go.
1. Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle rooms, and he might
have a sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints in his fingers might be
eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floorsmen, the beef-boners and
trimmers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the
use of his thumb;
Answers
Correct: second excerpt (The Jungle: Upton
Sinclair)
Incorrect: first excerpt (Divergent: Veronica
Roth)
List of Books and Authors
1. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark
Twain
3. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
4. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
5. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor
Dostovyevsky
Common Themes
-Class conflicts
-Family
-Marriage
-Gender roles
-Effects of urbanization
Art
Gustave Courbet, The Stone
Breakers (1849)
Honoré Daumier, The
Legislative Belly (1834)
Vincent van Gogh, First Steps
(1890)