Introduction
Realism is a trend in literature and art that aims at truthful and objective reproduction of reality in its typical features. The reign of realism followed the era of Romanticism and preceded symbolism. This literary trend originated in the XIX century, and its adherents sharply opposed sophisticated forms of poetry and the use of various mystical concepts in works. The concept of realism is a term, and nothing more, and in order to understand the essence of the direction, it is necessary not only to know its definition, but also its defining features, principles, philosophy and other foundations.
Historical Context
The second half of the 19th century was marked by the American Civil War. This war became the bloodiest conflict in the history of the nation. Of all the world powers, America was the only one in the XIX century to go through such a terrible historical shock (Thomas, 2021). When the war ended, and slavery ended, the pace of social development increased enormously. Big cities were growing by leaps and bounds; with them, slums inhabited by yesterday’s slaves and immigrants who knew no more than a dozen phrases in English. Literature responded to these dramatic, exciting events sometimes with enthusiasm and more often with alertness. Many writers, filled with great hopes and faith in the historic mission of America, then experienced periods of doubt and disappointment.
One of the main problems of American philosophy was the gradual elimination of religion from public life. Now thinkers were faced with the critical question of knowing themselves and the world around them. The ideas of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had a great influence on the literary world (Thomas, 2021). Nietzsche was an atheist and believed that the norms and values that the Christian church preaches are false, because they elevate weakness and insignificance into virtue, and strength into sin, so people have become weak.
Values and Faith
The new school of American philosophers and psychologists sought to ensure that seemingly abstract arguments about materialism, idealism, determinism, and free will were established in the minds of Americans as something directly concerning them. In this way, they tried to prevent the washing away of the true human foundations of life by a massive flow of mechanical forces. In the works of the greatest realists, the American novel asserted its special theme of human resistance to the disfiguring influence of the environment (Thomas, 2021). In this sense, the choice of the main characters is extremely indicative. The essence of a realistic image of a person is the destruction of a ready-made scheme, including a moralistic one, with its simple opposition: bad — good.
To the question, “What is God?” American realists no longer answered in the context of religion. Nietzsche’s famous thesis – God is dead – became the personification of the perception of God in the 20th century (Thomas, 2021). Religion, according to Nietzsche, turned people into enslaved people. An enslaved person cannot find the foundation of his life in himself. As soon as scientific discoveries shook religion’s authority, humanity’s slavish nature was immediately revealed. That is why realists depict a person’s inner impulses and desires, thanks to which he can achieve his goal. The religious answer to the question “What does it mean to be a good person?”, is that a person must observe the postulates and not commit bad deeds regulated by religion. Now the essence of a realistic image of a person is the destruction of a ready-made scheme, including a moralistic one, with its simple opposition: bad — good. People survive only because of their inner strength, which stems from kindness, flexibility, and individuality.
The greatest writer of the early XX century Jack London reveals the theme of social inequality in his stories. They describe a new and unfamiliar world for Americans — fearless people, gold diggers of the North, the world of romance and adventure (Newlin, 2019). The reverse side of the economic prosperity of the United States is depicted on a grand scale in the novels of the outstanding American writer Theodore Dreiser. One of the best works of the writer is the novel American Tragedy. The novel reflects the American way of life, in which the poverty of workers from the outskirts stands out vividly against the affluence of the privileged class (Newlin, 2019). He portrayed the social order surrounding him with the unwavering strength and skill of a true realist. However, despite how harsh the world appeared before his eyes, the writer never lost faith in the dignity and greatness of man and his beloved country.
Genres and Styles
At the end of the XIX century, a short story occupies a prominent place in American literature. O’Henry proved himself to be a virtuoso master of the short story, a light, and cheerful novella. He longed for “simple, honest prose” and sought to free himself from certain stereotypes and “pink endings” that the press expects (Newlin, 2019). The next favorite genre among American realists is writing. This genre evokes a special feeling of the author’s deep interest in what is being described, the feeling that what is being discussed is not indifferent but exciting, vital for the creator of the work. The Russian culturologist M. Bakhtin studied speech as a realistic literature genre. Bakhtin’s examples range from informal conversations to practical issues, such as chronicles, contracts, and letters, to literary ones, with a special emphasis on the novel. The realism genre was valid only in prose, and they had lost their realism in poetry.
Authors and Proceedings
Mark Twain is one of the first realists in American history. His most realistic and significant work is the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This work is about childhood, its special world, special laws, and an exceptional understanding of life when the main thing is the desire for freedom from the rules and conventions imposed by the “adult world” (Twain, 2022). Among other things, the book about the adventures of Tom Sawyer was a parody of a very popular genre of literature about good and bad children in the USA at that time (Twain, 2022). This genre performed a purely moralizing function and unequivocally proved that virtue should be rewarded. The images of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, despite the significant are similar in the main thing: they do not fit into the framework of the image of a “good boy” in any way (Twain, 2022). However, the most important thing for the writer was that Tom, in the process of both fictional and quite real trials and adventures, acquires the ability to judge everything, if not soberly, then with compassion.
The next writer, Stephen Crane, had roots dating back to the era of the American Revolutionary War. Having published a novel about the Civil War, The Red Badge of Courage, he enjoys constant success as a champion of the common person, a realist, and a symbolist. Maggie Crane: The Girl of the Streets is one of the best, if not the earliest, realistic American novels. This is the heartbreaking story of a poor, sensitive young girl whose parents completely let her down. She wants to escape her abusive family life, so she starts living with a young man who soon leaves her (Sigar et al., 2020). When her mother rejects her, Maggie becomes a prostitute to survive, but she soon commits suicide out of desperation. Crane’s earthly subject matter and objective, scientific style, devoid of moralizing, distinguish Maggie Crane: The Girl of the Streets as a real job.
Another American writer, William Dean Howells, used the genre of realism as a patronage and illumination of the identity of the American way of life. Howells asserts the dominance of ethical values as opposed to the ideology of bourgeois success. In later works, the author tried to show that the USA is following its path of realism (Newlin, 2019). Democratic rights and freedoms are triumphant in the USA, so optimism and joy are much more appropriate. The main thing in the book is the contrast between the idle upper class and the suffering lower classes, as well as various attempts to eliminate or mitigate social injustice. The writer builds a whole system of characters — social types and carriers of different points of view, without giving final and simple answers to complex questions.
Passages
Analyzing Mark Twain’s famous work The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, one can characterize the author as a representative of American realism. Twain not only entertains the reader. There are not so many puns, comic hoaxes, or parodies in the story as in some of his early works. Even now, laughter helps the writer show different sides of American life. Twain mockingly draws churchmen and exposes the falsity of Sunday school. In St. Petersburg, he shows, there are a lot of hypocrites (Twain, 2022). The widow Douglas “prays all the time — may she be empty!” and causes Huck irritation. There is no real purity in the church, the choristers are always giggling, and no one can listen to a boring sermon (Twain, 2022). Boys exchange tickets received for memorizing verses from the Bible for fish hooks. As a result, Tom, who cannot name any of the twelve apostles, but managed to exchange the right number of tickets, is awarded the Bible for his superior knowledge of the gospel.
To conclude, America’s suddenly changed habitual life has affected all spheres of culture. American writers were now surrounded, on the one hand, by the collapse of existing religious and state foundations, coupled with the devastating civil war that had left its mark, and on the other hand, by an abundance of new scientific, technical, biological and philosophical concepts that viewed the role of man and nature in the world in a new way. The emergence of realism logically stems from the cultural upheaval of people’s consciousness. American realists sought to convey concrete authenticity in the description of the existing reality, attention to the surrounding world in all its manifestations, recognition of everyday, everyday human life worthy of artistic description, and conviction in the ability of art to know and reflect the real world.
References
Newlin, K. (2019). The Oxford handbook of American literary realism. Oxford Handbooks.
Sigar, P. Y., Rorintulus, O., & Lolowang, I. S. (2020). The influence of the environment to Maggie’s behavior in Crane’s “Maggie: a girl of the street”. Journal of English Culture, Language, Literature and Education, 8(1), 64-79.
Thomas, B. (2021). American literary realism and the failed promise of contract. University of California Press.
Twain, M. (2022). Complete works of Mark Twain. Illustrated: The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, personal recollections of Joan of Arc, The Prince and the Pauper and others. Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing.