美国现实主义.American Realism.ppt

1、American Realism (1860-1914,I. The Definition of Realism but as a dominant literary trend it is associated chiefly with the 19th century novel of middle-or-lower-class life, in which the problems of ordinary people in unremarkable circumstances are rendered with close attention to the details of phy

2、sical setting and to the complexities of social life,I. The Rise of Realism: Historical Background,The industrial North had triumphed over the agrarian South, and from that victory came a society based on mass labor and mass consumption.,an age of extremes”-“of decline and progress, of poverty and d

3、azzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope,A. The Civil War,B. The Gilded Age,C. Immigrant Booming,The new intercontinental rail system, inaugurated in 1869, and the transcontinental telegraph, which began operating in 1861, gave industry access to materials, markets, and communications. The constant

4、 influx of immigrants provided a seemingly endless supply of inexpensive labor as well,D. Social Problems,Problems of urbanization and industrialization appeared: poor and overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions, low pay (called wage slavery), difficult working conditions, and inadequate restrain

5、ts on business,American Realism 1. American Realism The American Civil War brought the Romantic Period in American literature to its end, and realism, as a literary movement, came in the latter half of the nineteenth century and became a major trend in the 1870s and 1880s,16,The three major realisti

6、c writers Mark Twain William Dean Howells Henry James,II. American Realism (1860-1914,Broadly defined as the faithful representation of reality or verisimilitude, realism is a literary technique practiced by many schools of writing. Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes

7、 a particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation of middle-class life,A. Realism,B. American Realism,In American literature, the term realism encompasses the period of time from the Civil War to the turn of the century during which William Dean Howells, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henr

8、y James, Mark Twain, and others wrote fiction devoted to accurate representation and an exploration of American lives in various contexts,C. The Characteristics of American Realism,American realists renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. b. American realists selectively present the rea

9、lity with an emphasis on verisimilitude, even at the expense of a well-made plot. c. Character is more important than action and plot; his/her complex ethical choices are often the subject. Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive. They are in explicable relation to natur

10、e, to each other, to their social class, and to their own past,d. Class is important. The novel has traditionally served the interests and aspirations of middle class. (characters from all social levels are examined in depth). e. Events are usually plausible. Realistic novels avoid the sensational,

11、dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances. f. Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone being comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact. g. Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important: overt authorial comments or intrusions diminish as the century progresses,D.

12、 Regional and Local Color Writings: the Early Stage of Literary Realism,Similarity,A. They are instances of realism insofar as they depict contemporary life, use the speech of the common people, and avoid, in general, fantastic plotlines,B. There are also often a romantic flavor in regional and loca

13、l color writings as they receive influences from Washington Irving and the frontier tradition of tall tales,Differentiation,A. A regional work relies on the cultural, social and historical settings. If the setting is removed, the work is destroyed,B. Local color writings are just as dependent upon a

14、 specific geographical location, but they give more emphasis to the local details by tapping into its folklore, history, customs, beliefs and speech. Dialect peculiarities are the defining characteristic of local color writing,E. Representative Writers,a. Henry James (18431916), Daisy Miller (1878),

15、 The Ambassadors (1903), The Wings of the Dove (1902) and The Art of Fiction,b. William Dean Howells (18371920), The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and Criticism and Fiction,c. Mark Twain (18351910), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Life on the Mississippi

16、 (1883,III. Mark Twain (1835-1910,A. Mark Twains Life,born in Hannibal, Missouri - apprenticed to a printer - a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi - fought in the Civil War -went to the silver fields of Nevada - joined the staff of Territorial Enterprise - began his career as a frontier humorist,B.

17、Mark Twains Main Works,Innocents Abroad (1869); Roughing it (1872); The Gilded Age (1873); The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884); Life on the Mississippi (1883),C. Characteristics of Mark Twain,a. His works sum up the tradition of Western humor and frontier r

18、ealism. b. He writes about his people and his own life. c. His greatest achievement on literature is his use of the dialect and his portrayal of the locale,D. The differences between Howells, James and Mark Twain,In thematic terms, James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society, and How

19、ells concerned himself chiefly with middle class life, whereas Mark Twain dealt largely with the lower strata of society,Technically, Howells wrote in the vein of genteel realism, James pursued an “imaginative” treatment of reality or psychological realism, but Mark Twains contribution to the develo

20、pment of realism and to American literature as a whole was partly through his theories of localism in American fiction, and partly through his colloquial style,IV. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884,A. Plot Summary,Mark Twains classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, tells the story

21、of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious,B. Main Characters,a. Huckleberry Fi

22、nn: Main character of the book. He is an illegitimate child who runs away from his adopted family to be free of society and civilization,b. Jim: Miss Watsons slave. He runs away and journeys down the Mississippi River with Huck. Together, they have many adventures, and Jim becomes a father figure fo

23、r Huck,d. Widow Douglas: Adopts Huck to try and civilize him,e. Miss Watson: Sister of the Widow Douglas. She tries to teach Huck religion and how to spell,f. Pap: Hucks drunkard father. He kidnaps Huck because he wants his money, but Huck escapes,c. Tom Sawyer: Hucks best friend who freely spins li

24、es and loves adventure,The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldnt stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags

25、and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. (Chapter I,Paragraph Analyses,道格拉斯寡妇认我做干儿子，说要教我做人的规矩；可是只要想想这寡妇为人处世多古板、多正经，就能明

26、白一天到晚呆在她屋里真是活受罪；所以到了我再也受不了的时候，我就溜啦。我又穿上原来的破衣烂衫，重新躲到我那只大木桶里，真是自在逍遥，可汤姆索亚找到我，说他要成立一个强盗帮，如果我肯回到寡妇那儿做一个受人尊敬的人，我可以加入这个帮、于是我就回去了,Well, you see, it uz dis way. Ole missus-dats Miss Watson-she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn sell me down to Orleans. But I not

27、iced dey wuz a nigger trader roun de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de do pooty late, en de do warnt quite shet, en I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn want to, but she could git eight hundd dollars for m

28、e, en it uz sich a big stack o money she couldn resis. (Chapter VIII,好吧，听我说，事情是这样的。老小姐就是说华珍小姐她从早到晚挑剔我对我可凶啦不过她老说，她不会把我卖到下游奥尔良那里去。不过我注意到，最近 有一个黑奴贩子，老在这里走动，我就心神不定。啊，一天晚上，我偷偷到了门口，那是很 晚了，门没有关紧，我听到老小姐告诉寡斧妇，说她要把我卖到下游奥尔良去。说她本不愿意卖，不过卖了能得八百块大洋，这么大的一个数目，她不能不动心,And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that h

29、ere was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old womans nigger that hadnt ever done me no harm, and now was showing me theres One thats always on the lookout, and aint a

30、-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further. I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared,到后来，我突然之间猛然醒悟了，认识到这明明是上帝的手在打我的耳光，让我明白，我的种种邪恶始终逃不开在天上的眼睛。一个可怜的老妇人平生从没有损害过我一根毫毛，我却把她的黑奴拐跑，为了这个，上帝正指引着我，让我明白什么都逃不过“他”那高悬的明镜，“他”决不允许这类不幸的事再发展下去，只能到此为止。一想到这些，我差点就跌倒在地，委实吓得不得了啦,Well,

31、 I tried the best I could do to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warnt so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, “There was the Sunday School, you could a gone (could have gone) to it; and if youd a done it theyd a learnt you there that

32、 people that acts as Id been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.” (Chapter XXXI,于是，我就想方设法地试图为自己开脱。我对自个儿说：我从小就在邪恶的环境中长大，因此不能过于怪罪我啊。不过，在我的心里，还有另外一个声音在不停地说，“还有主日学校哩。你本该到那儿去。要是你早去的话，他们会在那儿教导你的嘛，教导你说，谁要像我那样为了黑奴所干的这一切，是要下地狱受到永恒的烈火的煎熬的,It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my ha

33、nd. I was a- trembling, because Id got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: All right, then, Ill GO to hell-and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. (Chapter XXXI,这真叫我难做。我拿起纸捏在手里。我浑身哆嗦，因为我得在两种做法中做出决定，从此定局，这一点我心里明白。我几乎屏住气，琢磨了一阵儿，然