Colonial Literature	Civil War & Realism	Modernism
European Romanticism	Whitman	Harlem Renaissance
American Romanticism	19th century Naturalism	Beat Generation/Whitman
New England Renaissance	American Realism & Regionalism	Feminism
Dickinson	Anxiety of Influence	Home

 American Realism (Civil War to the early 1900s)

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Realism (click here to go to the art gallery of realism): One way to begin to understand Realism is to think of the opposite mindset of a Romantic. Where as the author of a romantic work will emphasize imagination and metaphor, the realist tries to portray things as they really are. No longer do we have a king or the ruling class as protagonist; realist authors strive to present everyday people in extraordinary circumstances to show that high tragedy can exist in any region of the United States. Watch how Twain invokes Shakespeare along the muddy Mississippi. What other romantic elements can be stretched inside out to form an element of realism?

Some basic elements of Realism, which was in some ways a reaction to Romanticism;

• Turns from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived.
• Avoid improbabilities of such Romantic tales as Washington Irving's Devil and Tom Walker, Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and The Scarlet Letter.
• Finds the drama and the tension beneath the surface of life. A Realist writer may be more objective than subjective, more descriptive than symbolic. A Realist writer gets to the heart of human experience without ever swerving too far from verisimilitude (real appearance) or lifelikeness.
• Realism frequently provided an outlet for a writer's democratic sympathies. Middle and working class people were often its subject; this movement focused on class conflicts as well as struggles dealing with race and gender in order illuminate their democratic sympathies.
• The novelist Frank Norris said: "Realism is the kind of fiction that confines itself to the type of normal life." William Dean Howells, one of the earliest exponents of Realism, put it: "Let fiction cease to lie about life; let it portray men and women as they are."
• Authors of Realism deliberately use the ordinary speech or dialect to represent the character authentically. For a clear example, notice how the children of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter talk compared to Huck: Come, therefore, let us fling mud at her (Pearl). Did little Puritans talk that way? Not likely. Did children speak the same dialect that Huck uses in Huck Finn? You bet!

An offshoot of realism is Regionalism. When we analyze Twain's work with the critical lens of regionalism, we also summon Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence within Twain's region. We will explain this theory in class. For Twain's sake, we will analyze how he used Satire in/of his region. In addition, Willa Cather’s My Antonia explores Regionalism as does Twain’s Masterpiece, Huckleberry Finn. Cather’s book begins with the inscription Optima dies...Prima fugit. (The best days are the first to flee.) In the middle of his childhood (Absent parents? You bet!), the narrator/protagonist of My Antonia reflects on his native region, Nebraska, and summons more lines from Virgil’s Georgics: Primus ego in patriam mecum...deducam Musas (For I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country land [region]). Many Cather readers believe that she, as an author, succeeds in this literary venture. Does Twain? How does Twain bring the Muse into his region? What other author(s) is/are haunting his text?
NB: Homer describes a bunch of Rose-fingered dawns. Reread chapter 19 and reflect. In class be sure to understand how we use this famous literary theory, Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence. Notice how Twain deals with this "anxiety of influence" by using satire and humor.

Topics for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Racism: explore 19th century racism (NB: Pap's loud racist remarks will be similar to Tom Buchanan's in The Great Gatsby) in the text and ask the larger question, how did this novel--particularly the depiction of Jim's humanity in the middle of the novel--break down stereotypes of slavery? Towards the end of the novel, we will watch Huck and Tom trying to free a free man on Uncle Silias (Did you catch the initials of Uncle Silias? US?) Uncle Silias' farm. How does this relate to the political and historical landscape of late nineteenth century America? How does it relate to Twain's own trip down the Mississippi river after slavery which made him wonder how we can free a free man. In this case, sharecropping had replaced slavery as the institution; what happened to voting rights in the 19th century south)?

Picaresque Narrative: “`Picaro’ is Spanish for `rogue’ and the subject of a typical story is the escapades of an insouciant rascal who lives by his wits, and shows little if any alteration of character through the long succession of his adventures; picaresque fiction is realistic in manner, episodic in structure (as opposed to the sustained development of a single Plot), and usually satiric in aim” (Abrams 119).

Satire: A humorist at heart, Twain satirizes a number of subjects in this novel: slavery, southern culture, a misplaced American value for money, the confidence man, American and European Romanticism, his own literary heroes such as Shakespeare--no one is safe!

Psychoanalytical Topics:

One approach for this fun topic: From the moment the reader discovers the Notice that appears in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’s preface (the pretext), one subtly understands that powerful material lies ahead in the upcoming text. On the one hand, Twain infuses humor by suggesting that “persons attempting to find a plot” in the book will be shot. On the other hand, Twain’s humor covers and masks profound issues. With this second perspective in mind, write an essay discussing the significance of three related scenes, characters, objects, or symbols. For time’s sake limit your well developed discussion to three things.

With this in mind, brainstorm your topic by listing things related to the father and son plot. Then reflect on your whole list before you try to sculpt a concentration or thesis.

Another approach for this fun topic: Thoroughly discuss one literary pattern from the novel. Throughout the course of the novel--and I choose that word course carefully--Samuel Clemens’--rather, Mark Twain develops in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn several motifs. In other words, several literary patterns emerge as the reader travels through Huck’s adventures. The reader discovers: numerous scenes with hogs; the recurring number, forty, continually revolves around certain figures in the novel; the author constantly creates instances of doubling (doppelganger in German); the author shows characters making, marking and covering tracks; the novel contains interesting scenes of metafiction. Chose one pattern and discuss its significance throughout the text.

More ideas to help you start each the violence between Father and Son relationships.

• This is a major and long running issue. I often bring up issues from Tom Sawyer and explain how both novels delineate this recurring theme. Because this motif extends throughout, your first concern in writing about this subject should be a realistic scope. In other words, be sure to limit yourself to a realistic framework. For example, you may want to discuss at length various symbols or patterns that emphasize this point. You could discuss the catfish or floating house rather than trying to delineate each instance of the father/son motif in the novel’s plot.
• On the picaresque level, the events seem to be random and the only consistent factor is the direction that Huck and Jim travel. Examining the pattern of the various symbols and instances of doubling, on the other hand, we begin to see a well constructed plot. With the father/son issue compass in our hand (right or left hand? Hand of a hog?) as our guide, the angry father issues plot out well and the tracks are easy to follow:
• Novel/sequel opens with a ghost haunting and an uncanny appearance of angry father (dark footprints with an X mark tracking up the white snow echoes the writing and reading process):
• Father locks son in house, son points loaded gun at father and suffers some of the psychological effects of pulling the trigger. Thus, son recreates/acts out a murder on father substitute, the hog; buries the hog in river of fathers and covers up the tracks (notice haunting).
• B/c we bury something powerful, it naturally returns to us in a more dramatic fashion: 1st: Jim is a new father: snake violence/drinking father’s 40-rod whiskey completes the displacement. 2nd: father reappears in floating house, naked like Noah and house contents tell the past and future of the plot (Bam: who’s shooting? Was that a double barrel shotgun I heard?) working through the angry father issues. (Tangent: Vader is the way the German language pronounces father. Dark Father plot exists in many stories. Ouch, look out!) Keep your seat belts on as you continue to look for the tracks of this plot.

Interdisciplinary Topic/American Studies Topic:

Look up the book and reflect on some ideas presented in the, Machine in the Garden, by Leo Marx. Help yourself to the following inspirational questions that were enthused on the my computer screen after a rereading of this book:

• How often and why does Huck retreat from society and seek out nature?
• Identify some “gardens” that Huck and Jim enjoy. How long do these stays in the “gardens,” these lyrical moments in nature last? What interrupts them?
• Twain’s novel was published in 1884. Read the last page and see where Huck goes at the end. It won’t spoil the book in anyway. In 1890, the Superintendent of the Census declared that the frontier no longer existed. Reflect and respond to this historical influence.

Other authors classified in the Movement of Realism: Sarah Orne Jewett, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin.

Writing Suggestions for Huckleberry Finn

Study management tips:

• Don’t shoot yourself in the study management foot! Create a separate section in your note book for each of these five topics. I would suggest reserving a half page or so (your mileage may vary). Thus, somewhere in the middle or what you perceive the end of your Huck section in your notebook, carve out space for the following topics.
• Reread and review your notes and reflect on the material five minutes daily in order to invest the quality reflection needed for these topics. In addition, be clever and savvy with your review methods. Actively reviewing your class notes in a different color ink/pencil will help you process some of this difficult material in an orderly fashion.
• Bring your questions and issues to class. Let’s begin with a good question. We work more in the next few weeks on how to carve a profound question, but in the short term, reflect on your homework after you read.

Art Gallery of Realism:

	Did you ever create a still life in art class? What bullet points of Realism are dramatized in this still life? What is the value of an artist's representation of life? What is your favorite still life painting?
	This is Winslow Homer's A Veteran in a New Field. What bullet points of Realism are being dramatized on this canvas? The bottom right corner captures a Union uniform jacket. Where are the subjects feet? Why is his back turned to us?