Realism And Realism : The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain Essay

Realism is the period in American literature from 1860 to 1890. This movement in writing focused on writing about how things really appeared and how they really were instead of writing in a dark manner. The stories, Life On The Mississippi and The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County written by Mark Twain best represent the realism movement in American literature at this time.

In essence, literary realism is put in place to give its readers a real place of how life was or how something occurs in the pass. The two stories that gave me a good depiction of what realism is are: Editha by William Dean Howells, and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The two stories put things in perspective when it comes to life in the nineteenth century and the problems that came along with it. Which are so unfortunate in some cases but it gives us the readers the raw truth.

Realism began as a literary withdrawal from romanticism. Romantic literature focused mainly on idealized or dreamlike lifestyles while “realistic works were intended to be accurate portrayals of

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first” (Mark Twain). Realism is a faithful representation of reality that isn’t swayed by unconscious bias or idealistic aims. Realism arose in literature from the period of the civil war where authors showed more truthiness in their writings (Campbell). Jack London and Mark Twain convey the theme that humans have faults through their different styles of writing in their works, “To Build a Fire” and “The Lowest Animal”.

12. What does the term “realism” refer to? Describe realism. The term “realism” refers to a movement in English, European, and American literature that grouped form from the 1830s to the end of the century. William Dean Howells, the magazine editor who was for some decades the chief American advocate of realist aesthetics once said, Realism “is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material” (Howell 9).

Realism is an American literary style that emerged after the Civil War. Some common characteristics of realism are a focus on common people and realistic

In literature, the Realism Movement occurred in Europe and America in the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, before Modernism. Realism is described as a style and a type of writing where writers wanted to portray life as it really was – real lives, real jobs, and real problems. This type of writing was a reaction to and a rejection of Romanticism, which was a style of writing that focused on optimism. The importance of character and class, plausible events, and renders reality closely are some characteristics of Realism. Some examples of Realism writers include Mark Twain, Henry James, and John W. DeForest.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain that focuses on the coming of age of a young boy in the mid 1800s in Missouri. Throughout the novel, the main character Huckleberry Finn faces many moral dilemmas through his adventure where his decisions affect the growth of his maturity and morality of his character. However, Huck Finn eventually shows that by the end of the novel that he has matured morally through his interactions and shared experiences with runaway slave Jim and reaches Stage 6 of Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory whereas at the start of the novel he was at Stage 1. Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory is a belief started by John Kohlberg that ranks the stage of morality that a human has based on social interactions from stages of 1 to 6. The first two stages of this theory is when a human makes moral decisions based on self-interests/conveniences, the next two stages is when decisions that are made are based off pleasing others, and the final two stages are decisions made based on what is right even if they break the social norms.

During the time that this story was written, realism was a trending topic. Realism is a style and type

Realism, in contrast to Romanticism, represents the reality of life in America. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, America experienced enormous industrial, economic, social, and cultural change. Realism focuses on showing everyday activities and events among the middle and lower class society without romantic ideas. In the early 20th century people started to pull away from fantasy and started focusing on the reality around them. Realism emphasises on truth, class, and social commentary.

Realism in literature is basically the successor to romanticism. It first took off and gained footing in 19th century France. The literary style is a more straightforward and realistic style of writing in comparison to romanticism which was all about exaggeration and symbolism. Realism is often interchangeable with naturalism and branches out into regionalism which is interchangeable with local color. This type of writing is responsible for one of the greatest era of literary works.

"Authors began to focus their writing on ordinary people and their everyday lives" which caused the shift from Romanticism to Realism to begin.Many American authors were influenced by this movement ("Realism"). Realism inspired these authors to take into a deeper meaning the realties of life by further examining the obstacles and circumstances they have undergone (Marshall). The main ideas of literature shifted from giving people supernatural traits to authors portraying humans as the ordinary person ("Realism"). The major theme of this time period was to preserve the foundations that America’s forefathers laid down for the country. The Civil War was ultimately a second chance for the nation to rebuild and gain back the beneficial aspects that were overlooked in times of change. Realism began around the time of the Civil War and ended in early 1900. The changes in the writing styles shifted America’s views on the works of literature in the time period and caused a drastic change in the country (Leonard). Realists wanted to use the diction of the typical person to be able to connect to them and portray the concreteness of life

Realism came about in literary works in the 19th century, and portrayed real life unlike the previous Enlightenment and Romanticism movements prior. Writers and people were sick of the neat, happy stories and endings that were written by the two previous movements, and those people wanted something they could relate to. Because of this, Realistic writers wrote about the boring, ordinary lives that regular folks led and did not sugar-coat anything that occurred but was brutally honest. In the words of Randall Craig, “Realistic writers educate readers, not through humiliation, but by familiarizing them with a re-presented world and enabling them to discover the rules by which it works and to apply them both to the fictional and extra-fictional

The novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a highly realistic novel, yes, it is all about realism. The work shows stereotypes, satire, non-romanticized characters, racism and slavery. Stereotypes are applied to almost every characters in the novel, not only Jim, Huck, but also the duke, the king, and other white people. Back then when Minstrel shows were a big influence on society, white people considered them an entertainment, but what they actually did, was to wash out every sense of human being in a black person. Black people were depicted with poor grammar, as lazy and loudmouthed, uneducated people. However, Jim is a very humane picture. The fact that, Jim acts as a father figure more than Pap does. While Pap abuses Huck,

Realism is the portrayal of the reality of everyday life and period of literature between 1850-1900. Realist fictions speculate myths, assumptions, social norms, sentimentality, collective wisdom, and prejudices. Realism stories are usually about the middle-class people, and it aims to show a truthful portrayal of truth. Regionalism is a class of realist literature distinguished by closeness to the habits, language, dialects, manners, history, traditions, beliefs of a particular geographical region. Regionalism manifests the characters of both realism and romanticism. Romanticism is cultural the period from 1830-1860 in America. Humankind is naturally good. The characteristics of romanticism are passion and emotion, nature over the man, spiritual, intuition, and insight. "A White Heron," by Sarah Orne Jewett, is an example of local color because of its realism. Jewett uses characteristics of regionalism like dialogue to show the contrast between the locals and outsiders, habits, their daily activities, the dress, features of a place. "Editha" by William is the story of realism which has many characteristics of realism like details about war; he uses dialect to hold out the trend of the story, using middle-class peoples character. Dean Howell uses a part of romantic style but all together its categorized as one of the