Realism
Definition
• Literary realism defined as “faithful and honest
representation of reality”
• the honest and object depiction of life
Key Elements
• Lack of sentiment and idealism
• Lacks the flowery language of traditional
Romantic works
• Contains a great deal of detail and imagery
• Contains a straightforward narrative voice
• Realist writers focused mainly on the lower and
middle classes of society.
Stylistic Devices
• Attention to detail
• Straight forward tone to the story
• Text lacks the emotion and glorification of Romantic
work
• Text is undistorted by personal bias
• No hint of author/narrator personal tone
• Contains a great deal of imagery
• Uses the original voice or dialect of a character
Realism in A Doll’s House
• A Doll's House - An overview
• Written in Rome at a time of revolution in
Europe
• A play in the realist genre, it did challenge
the traditional well-made play mode which
worked from the exposition, through to the
rising action of the situation to the final
solution or unravelling of a play's tensions or
issues.
The last moments of the play where Nora tells •
Torvald she will leave him turns the tradition upside
down for the audience.
Characters portrayed in realistic mode as imperfect •
and dimensional
The most obvious underlying theme is that of •
feminism; Nora's rejection of marriage and
motherhood shocked audiences and many German
productions of the 1880's altered the ending, which
deeply upset Ibsen. (he called this 'a barbaric
outrage!')
•
Male and female:
The place of women is explored through •
the institutions of motherhood and
marriage (the children are like 'dolls' to
Nora)
Torvald holds tight to the traditional view •
of women as homemakers and good
mothers, the moral guardians of the
children and the home.
• He regards women rather like children who are
helpless who need protection from the harsh realities
of life; men are independent and the guardians
• Nora is called many names throughout the play, 'little
songbird.' 'little skylark,' 'little person,' 'squirrel.' 'lark,'
'little featherhead.' 'little woman,' 'little rogue,'
'helpless little mortal,' 'child.' 'charming little darling,'
'my frightened little singing bird,' 'miserable creature,'
'thoughtless woman,' 'blind foolish woman,' 'a
heedless child,' - all indicating a lack of equality and
respect for Nora's personage.
Focus on thematic, metaphoric and
symbolic underpinnings
Setting:
• Dramatic action takes place in one room
where Nora has been described as being
'trapped in domestic comfort'.
Materialism versus people
• A great deal of importance is place on materialism
rather than people
• Money and materialism are viewed as ways of
avoiding dealing at a personal and close
communicative level with people.
Notable symbols:
• Black hat and black cross - a symbol for death
• Fisher girl costume - symbolises Nora's pretence of
•
•
•
•
enjoying life
Italy - the good false image of Nora's life
Norway - reality
Doll house - the tendency of the characters to roleplay
Toys - the act of pushing the roles onto Nora's
children
• Macaroons - Nora's deceit to her husband
• Tarantella - Nora's agitation at her struggle with Krogstad
and her husband
• Christmas tree - the mood of the play
• Stockings - Nora's attitude trying to please men and flirting
with Rank
• Letterbox and letter - stereotypes pressed on woman
• Ring - marriage and its demise
• Skylark - Torvald treating Nora like a child
Authors and Contributions
• Willa Carter:
o Works related to most women
o Made universl statements of human condition
o O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and One of Ours
• Mark Twain:
o Brought ordinary American voices to life
o Formed new sytle of literature
o The Gilded Age: The Tale of Today, The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• William Dean Howells:
o Comtemporary and sometimes controversial social themes
o Based characters on ordinary people
o A Modern Instance, A Hazard of New Fortunes, and Rise of Silas
Lapham
Themes Writers Focused On
• The attempt to present life objectively and
honestly with lack of sentiment or idealism that
colored early literature
• The realist base their writing on careful
observations of contemporary life, often on the
middle or lower classes
• Writing included authentic dialect to reveal class
distinctions
• Focused on social issues
• Rejected the idealized Romantic hero
Views on Man and Nature
• Man: competitive & self-interested based on
observation
• Nature: Nature is centered around on how they
(men) directly observe it
Characteristics of Heroes
• Earnest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the
Sea”
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”
• Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
• Similarities
• Differences
Culture
• Many things that the United States inherited were from France
• In the Romantic times women’s dresses were fussy and decorative,
skirts became fuller
• In the Realist times, compared to the Romantic times, is that women
stared to show more skin and the hem line began to rise.
• Art:
o -In the Realist times, most paintings were of the working class,
showing the struggles they had to pursue and expressing their
honest lifestyles.
-In comparison, the Romantic style of art had a strong emhacise
and it evoked strong emotion.
• Music and Dance:
o Ragtime:
 Scott Joplin
•
Ethics
• Moral Realism
o
Two branches
 Ethical intuitionism & ethical non-naturalism
 Ethical naturalism
• Moral Anti-Realism
o
Three branches
 Ethical Subjectivism
 Non-cognititism
 Error theory
Political
• Political realism in very selfish and only cares
for the well being for ones self or state.
• Corruption in the government ran rampant at the
time
• Lower classes and working class did not trust
the government
• Child labor laws and wage laws
• Writers made commentary on the political
climate in their literature
Spiritual
• Leaving the Puritan train of thought and moving
toward more of a science based standpoint
• Preferred to look at life objectively and question
the world and society·
• Time of questioning and curiosity
• There was a glorification of heroes (Romantic)
• There also was a strong belief in God and
Puritan Views (romantic)
Intellectual
• Intellectuals of the movement choose to be
critical thinkers (first)
• Philosophers include Pierre Proudhon and Karl
Marx
• Many of the beliefs were inspired by Rene’
Descartes and John Locke.
• Thomas Reid (later)
• Beliefs on reality: independence