realism and local color writing

REALISM AND LOCAL COLOR WRITING

Introducción á literatura norteamericana

Authors: Raquel Oliveira Chenlo and Paula Monteagudo Román

Table of Contents

1. Realism1.1. What is Realism?1.1.1. Context1.2. Common features and techniques 1.3. New Woman concept2. Local color writing 2.1. Definition 2.2. Context 2.3. Characteristics

1. Realism

Definition

American Realism is a movement that began in the middle 19th century, and became an important tendency in visual art in the early 20th century. The main goal was to represent contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people, in order to define what is real.

Context

From late 19th century to the early 20th century, the United States experienced the coming of European immigrants and the development of international trade, which brought prosperity to America.

Main Principles

• Insistence upon and defense of “the experienced commonplace”.
• Character is more important than plot.
• Attack upon Romanticism and romantic writers.
• Emphasis upon morality often self-realized and upon an examination of idealism.
• Concept of realism as a realization of democracy.

Realism: common features

• The philosophy of Realism is known as “decendental” or “non-trascendental”. The purpose of writing is to instruct and to entertain. Realists were pragmatic, relativistic, democratic and experimental.
• The subject matter of Realism is drawn from “our experience”. Writers treated the common, the average, the non-extreme, the representative, the probable.
• The morality of Realism is intrinsic and integral, the relations between people and society are explored.
• The style of Realism is the vehicle which carries realistic philosophy, subject matter and morality. The emphasis is placed upon scenic presentation, de-emphasizing authorial comment and evaluation. There is an objection towards the omniscient point of view.

Realism: techniques

• Setting thoroughly familiar to the writer.
• Plots emphasizing the norm of daily experience.
• Ordinary characters, studied in depth.
• Complete authorial objectivity.
• Responsible morality; a world truly reported.

New woman

• It emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence into the 20th century.
• Independent women seeking radical change.
• Popularized by British-American writer Henry James.
• Some examples of New Woman literature are: Victoria Cross’s Anna Lombard (1901), Ella Hepworth Dixon’s The Story of a Modern Woman (1894), H.G. Wells’s Ann Veronica (1909).

2. Local color writing

Definition

Local color writing or American literary regionalism is a style of writing that gained popularity in the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. This literature focuses on the characters, dialects, customs, topography and other particular features of a specific region.

Context

Between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century this literature became dominant in America. This literary movement contributed to the reunification of the country after the Civil War and to the building of national identity.

Characteristics

• Looks away from distant lands and exotic scenes.
• Most used form of writing is sketch or short story.
• Stories contain historical and georaphical references that may be not familiar to an outsider.
• Stories end with an open ending

Characters

Settings

• The emphasis is on nature and its limitation.
• Settings are remote and innacesible.
• It sometimes becomes a character itself.

• They are marked by old ways, stick to a dialect and personality traits particular to a region.
• Heroines are often unmarried women or young girls.
• Children are often main characters.

Plot

Narrator

• It includes a lot of storytelling.
• It revolves around the community and its rituals.
• It emphasises on community life.

• The narrator is an educated observer who learns something from the characters while preserving the distance.
• It serves as a mediator and it is often in first person.

Techniques

Themes

• Resistance to change and nostalgia for the past.
• Celebration of community and acceptance of adversities.
• The outsider who seeks something precious from the community.

• Use of dialect to establish autenticity.
• Use of detailed descriptions of seemingly unimportant details.
• Use of a frame story to which a narrator is central.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_literary_regionalism
• https://www.britannica.com/art/local-color
• https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/lcolor.html
• https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/lcolor.html
• https://academic.kellogg.edu/marklinl/AmLit2/Readings/LocalColorAndRegionalism.htm
• http://blogs.cofc.edu/american-survey/2017/03/16/realism-naturalism-regionalism-romanticism/
• http://americanlit215.weebly.com/realism.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century_in_the_United_States
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_realism
• https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm

IMAGES:

• Picture 1: Jean-François Millet, “The Gleaners” (1857). https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-realism-art-definition/
• Picture 2: James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, 1871). Popularly known as Whistler’s Mother. https://blog.singulart.com/en/2019/09/27/realism-art-and-style-everything-you-need-to-know/
• Picture 3: Winslow Homer, Fog Warner https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Art/A_World_Perspective_of_Art_Appreciation_%28Gustlin_and_Gustlin%29/11%3A_The_Industrial_Revolution_%281800_CE__1899_CE%29/11.03%3A_Realism_%281848__1870%29
• Picture 4: Google photos, https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us

• Picture 5: Street Scene (Hester Street) by George Benjamin. https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/articles/an-introduction-to-american-realism-in-12-works/
• Picture 6: Mary Wilkins Freeman, Google photos, https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Mary_Eleanor_Wilkins_Freeman_cph.3b05404.jpg
• Picture 7: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Google photos, https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Perkins_Gilman

Sources

• Picture 8: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, Google photos, https://www.google.com/search?q=the+yellow+wallpaper&rlz=1C1CHBD_esES979ES979&sxsrf=AOaemvK5ZnXIzd2JVjbVzxz2_Z90PsXmow:1637684453007&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidtcyA8q70AhV9hv0HHd0IA4kQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1366&bih=625&dpr=1#imgrc=FKkGFW-MZ6cblM
• Picture 9: New Woman, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Woman
• Picture 10: New woman, wikiwand, https://www.wikiwand.com/en/New_Woman
• Picture 11:https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/groganco/64/631564/H0030-L155279183.jpg
• Picture 12: https://cdn.britannica.com/53/184753-131-8376A7BD/Battle-of-Antietam-Kurz-Allison-1888.jpg
• Picture 13: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/99e276fd-f076-f396-b5c1-b22c3ce62b45/full/200,/0/default.jpg

Thanks for your attention!!