CLEP Realism and Naturalism

- Plot- Protagonist Edna Pontellier rebels against traditional attitudes of motherhood, marraige, and fidelity. On a vacation with her family, Edna meets Adele Ratignolle and a young swinger named Robert Lebrun who help to awaken her artistic and sexual sensibility. Edna leaves her husband Robert and has an affair with Alcee Arobin but still has an epistolary relationship with Robert. As Adele remind Edna of her children and family responsibilities, Edna is torn between desire and duty and walks into the sea. Was she a victim or was she selfish?

" The Awakening" by Kate Chopin.

This is the Debt I pay Just for one riotous day, Years of regret and grief, Sorrow without relief. Pay it I will to the end- Until the grave, my friend, Gives me a true release- Gives me the clasp of peace. Slight was the thing I bought, Poor was the loan at best-- God! But the interest!

" The Debt" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

- Plot- A Southerner to win the hand of his lover takes a slave, Grandison, up north and plots his "escape", but Grandison returns on his own accord to the south and is thus rewarded a slave position in his master's house, just to later surprise everybody by escaping with his extended family.

" The Passing of Grandison" by Charles W. Chesnutt.

- Plot- Henry Fleming is a Union soldier in the Civil War that is not too sure if he will fight or flee when at war. He fights the first battle but runs away in the second one. He runs across some soldiers and, seeing in others what he doesn't have, he romanticizes their war wounds as red badges of courage. In the turmoil, he is hit over the head and gets his own "badge" (in retreat not battle), but decisively fights in the end, although readers are left to speculate on his true character.

" The Red Badge of Courage" by Steven Crane.

- Plot- Short story about a woman who is committed to bed rest after giving birth and the postpartum psychosis is exasperated by her confinement. Staring at the wallpaper for unending hours, she imagines a woman trapped in it and she rips the wallpaper from the wall trying to free her, only to discover that it is herself who is trapped.

" The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

- Plot- Play about the life and work of Emily Dickinson that takes place in Iowa at the turn of the 19th century. A famous poet named Alison Stanhope died, and the house in which she lived is on the market. There are secrets from the past that are discovered about family reputation, personal relationships and poetry that make this play unique.

"Alison's House" play by Susan Glaspell.

- Plot of play- Based on true events Minnie Wright is arrested for murdering her husband but she never appears in stage. Gender sectioned dialogue takes place as the men examine the crime scene; the women (wives) undergo their own inquiry. It turns out that the women understand much more about what happened than the men. They put together that Minnie was abused by her husband and they sympathize with her oppression. They hide the evidence against her and in the end she is not prosecuted.

"Trifles" a play by Susan Glaspell.

G'way an' quit dat noise, Miss Lucy- Put dat music book away; What's de use to keep on tryin'? Ef you practise twell you're gray... You ain't got de nachel o'gans Fu' to make de soun' come right You ain't got de tu'ns an' twistin's Fu' to make it sweet an' light.....

"When Malindy Sings" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

- Known as an educator and voice for African Americans, received honorary doctorates from Harvard and Dartmouth. First African American to be received at the White House with honors. First leader of the Tuskegee Institute of Alabama. - He didn't think African Americans should racially advocate for great institutional or governmental changes but that they should work alongside whites. - Wrote autobiography "Up from Slavery" which is considered the most important work on the African American exprience at the time , "Tuskegee and its people", and "The Story of the Negro".

Booker T. Washington.

- Known as the "Father of American Drama", his plays influenced by classic tragedies, and his own family circumstances. - His characters live on the margin of society. Their circumstances overcome their ability to change, and even though hope is a prevalent, they end up disillusioned and affected by their sordid conditions. - Works include "Beyond Horizon", "Strange Interlude", "Ah! Wilderness", "Long Day's Journey into the Night" and "The Iceman Cometh".

Eugene O'Neill

- Poet, playwright, and avid art collector. Born in US but spent most of her adult life in France. In Paris she hosted a Salon with many influential artists and writers: Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald etc. - She connected painting with writing and tried to equal the artistic movements of the time- cubism, expressionism, fauvism- in words. These were called sketches and don't follow a traditional narratological structure. - Works include " The Making of Americans: The Hersland Family", "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas", "Brewsie and Willie", Collection of poems called "Tender Buttons" that included "Objects", "Food", and "Rooms".

Gertrude Stein.

- Pulitzer prize winning American novelist and also writer of short stories and poetry. - Best known for regionalist fiction about Midwestern farmers (inspired from his own political beliefs and places where he lived). - Was interested in Henry George's Tax movement which influenced his regionalist novels "Traveled Roads" and "Prairie Folks". Published autobiography called " A Son of the Middle Border" and wrote a sequel "A Daughter of the Middle Border". He won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1922 for this.

Hamlin Garland

- He said the author should be absent from the work (objectivity), that some critics are misguided, that writing is an art like painting and should be treated as such, with free will and conscious creativity within what is true to life (Realism).

Henry James.

- Realist writer with more upper class and "British" style. - Wrote about "naive" Americans abroad and their interactions with the more "sophisticated" old-school Europeans. - Wrote " Daisy Miller: A Study", " The Portrait of a Lady" and "The Art of Fiction".

Henry James.

- First African American writer to have a reputation abroad. Known for his ability to write in different dialects: African American dialect of the south, the midwestern dialect, and the English dialect. - Died at 33 fro tuberculosis. - Wrote lyrics for the musical "In Dahomey" it was the first African American musical on Broadway. - Poems include "When Malindy Sings" and "The Debt".

Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

- Novelist and writer of short stories. - Characters are inept, readers are caught in the dichotomy of pointing out the character faults but at the same time recognizing their own qualities in them. The presentation of the grotesque characters is the human experience as the author sees it. - Influenced by Gertrude Stein. - Works include "Dark Laughter" and collection of short stories called "Winesburg Ohio".

Sherwood Anderson.

- Sequel to Tom Sawyer. - Plot- Huck Finn now lives with the widow to avoid his alcoholic father. He gets bored and runs away from home and meets an escaped slave named Jim. He and Jim have a lot of adventures and meet a lot of people, Huck learns about prejudice in society and the evils of racism and slavery. Jim teaches him many valuable lessons and in the end Huck returns home and his father has died. With this sense of release he desires more adventures out west. - Written in a style to imitate peoples speech. - They meet many different types of people characterized: cons (the duke and the dauphin), families in unrest, robbers, bounty hunters, etc.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

- Wrote short stories and novels, worked as a journalist for McClure's and Home Monthly. - Not cutaneous with most realists but shared realist and regionalist tendencies. - Wrote about women's experiences in the American frontier, Nebraska and Midwest expansion. - Won Pulitzer prize for "One of Ours". - Most popular novel is "My Antonia" which is the final book in the trilogy about the American prairie (after "O Pioneers!" and "The Song of the Lark").

Willa Cather.

- Prolific writer known for his literary acquaintances ( Thoreau, Whitman, Wharton, Crane, etc.) Lincoln appointed him as consul to Italy. - Was the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. - Wrote "The Rise of Silas Lapham", "Editha" and "A Traveler from Altruria".

William Dean Howells

- Considered an important work of American literature, took 30 years of compiling entries he put in newspapers and magazines. Some examples of entries include: Egotist- A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.

"The Devils Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce.

- Plot- Sylvia is a young girl who lives in the woods with her Grandmother in Maine, she falls in love with the natural beauty around her. A hunter she meets offers her a reward if she helps him to find a white heron. She finds one but does not reveal its whereabouts because she chooses the preservation of natural beauty over financial gain.

" A White Heron" by Sara Orne Jewett.

- Plot- Clyde Griffith wants to pursue his financial and personal dreams but finds his pregnant girlfriend an impediment, so he kills her, but in the end is caught.

" An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser.

- Plot- Adventurous young American woman named Daisy Miller socially navigates through cities n Europe. Meets Winterbourne who takes an interest in her non-conventional manners. She has an affair with another man named Giovanelli and is caught red handed in the coliseum in Rome. Winterbourne warns her that she might get sick and she does and then passes. She writes him a letter and tells him of her appreciation of him.

" Daisy Miller: A Study" by Henry James.

- Novella about factory labor and women's issues, first realist work of literature. - Plot- Narrator (unknown) asks readers not to pass judgement on the characters of her story ( ex. of objectivity in realism). Main characters Deborah and Hugh Wolfe. Hugh doesn't think that he belongs in the iron mill as a worker. Deborah steals a wallet and gives it to Hugh. They go to jail and Hugh commits suicide. In the end a Quaker woman intervenes but it is too late. - Contrast of classes, contrast of living conditions. Misery and helplessness as people feel they cannot get out of their confines of destitution and poverty.

" Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis.

- Plot- Jim Burden is an orphan from Virginia who contrasts with the daughter of a family of Bohemian immigrants, Antonia Shimerda. Both these individuals struggle to make it in the prairie. The memories of their experience leave lasting impressions on both characters.

" My Antonia" by Willa Cather.

Whenever Richard Cory went downtown, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning", and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich- yes richer than a king- And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

" Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson.

- This book was written to exculpate African American's from the belief that they were responsible for failures of the reconstruction era.

"Black Reconstruction in America" by W.E.B. Du Bois.

-Plot- Of foster parents, she marries a plantation owner and has a baby with darker skin, which lays question to her own heritage.

"Desiree's Baby" by Kate Chopin.

- Plot- A woman romanticizes war and pushes her anti-war fiance' to enlist, which he does, and he is killed in battle. - Realist depiction.

"Editha" by William Dean Howells.

- Play that portrays one summer day in 1912 of a consumed and doomed Connecticut family's life: alcohol, drugs, deceit, negligence, and emotional turmoil. Mary Tyrone returns from a drug treatment program to her husband James, and two children, Jaime and Edmund, who have deep problems of their own. In the end, Mary does not overcome her addiction and Edmund falls ill with tuberculosis.

"Long Day's Journey into Night" play by Eugene O'Neill.

- Plot- Young lad falls upon the chance to help a rich gentleman who in turn helps him out. Through a series of events and interchanges between the virtue and vices of different characters, the young man rises in society and becomes successful. - Different ending than the typical realist novel but still deals with class.

"Ragged Dick" by Horatio Alger Jr.

- Plot- Country girl moves to Chicago and falls for different men who are seduced by her beauty. Marital infidelity, theft, and flight find the final couple in NYC, where he (George) commits suicide and Carrie reaches stardom as an actress but finds celebrity life empty and without merit.

"Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser.

- Journalist and newspaper editor known for his satire and bitter criticism. - Part of the San Francisco circle ( Small writers group). - Wrote war stories that were inspired by his own time as a civil war soldier. Took off to Mexico to support the Mexican revolution and was never heard from again. - Wrote "The Devils Dictionary", " The Death of Halpin Frasier" (Ghost story), "The Moonlit Road" (Gothic Horror Story), Stories about the civil war include "Chickamauga" and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge".

Ambrose Bierce.

- African American son of interracial parents. Became the principle of the State Colored School which later became Fayetteville State University. As a lawyer he was active in NAACP writing articles on education and challenging racial inequality in the law. - Novels and short stories examined the post-Civil war South's social and racial relations. - Wrote about people dealing with complex issues of race, "passing", and identity. He himself could "pass" but declared himself African American. - Some of his works include "The Conjure Woman", "The House Behind the Cedars", a short story book called "The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line" notable story from that book called "The passing of Grandison".

Charles W. Chesnutt

- Social activist and feminist, her unorthodox lifestyle exemplified her cosmovision (she separated, divorced and eventually remarried- very uncommon for those times). Was a supporter of euthanasia and took her own life when she developed breast cancer. - Wrote short stories, poems, and non-fiction. - Most popular work is the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper".

Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

- She divorced her husband and said in a letter to a friend " I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains lighter knots to undo, and consequently suggests more tugging, and pain, and diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie".

Edith Wharton

- Novelist, poet, and short story writer. Realist and naturalist perspective in her work. Wrote from her experiences with the American middle and upper classes which gave her psychological understanding of her characters. - First woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and nominated a number of times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. - More read works are "House of Mirth", "The Age of Innocence", and "Ethan Frome".

Edith Wharton.

- Regionalist poet from Maine much of his subject matter revolves around new England, won 3 Pulitzer prizes. - Characteristics of his writing: irony, nostalgia, human affliction, and solitude. - Poems include "Merlin" and "Tristam" both influenced by his interest in Arthurian literature. Other poems include "Richard Cory", "The Mill", "Haunted House", "Mr. Flood's Party", "Maya", and "Miniver Cheevy".

Edwin Arlington Robinson

- Wrote one of the first expressionist works of drama in the U.S.A. called "The Adding Machine". Won Pulitzer prize for "Street Scene" and his most successful work was "Dream Girl".

Elmer Rice.

Black riders came from the sea. There was clang and clang of spear and shield, And clash and clash of hoof and heel, Wild shouts and wave of hair In the rush upon the wind: Thus the ride of sin.

Excerpt from "The Black Riders" by Steven Crane.

There are many that I know and they know it. They are all of them repeating and I hear it. I love itand I tell it. I love it and now I will write it. This is now the history of the way some of them are it...

Excerpt from "The Making of Americans: The Hersland Family" by Gertrude Stein.

Hands Upon the half decayed veranda of a small frame house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg Ohio, a fat little old man walked nervously up and down. Across a long field that had been seeded for clover but that had produced a dense crop of yellow mustard weeks, he cold see the public highway along which went a wagon filled with berry pickers returning from the fields. The berry pickers, youths and maidens, laughed and shouted boisterously. A boy clad in blue shirt leaped from the wagon and attempted to drag after him one of the maidens, who screamed and protested shrilly.

Excerpt from "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson.

A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS. A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading. GLAZED GLITTER. Nickel, what is nickel, it is originally rid of cover. The change in that is that red weakens an hour. The change has come. There is no search. But there is, there is that hope and that interpretation and sometime, surely any is unwelcome, sometime there is breath and there will be a sinecure and charming very charming is that clean and cleansing. Certainly glittering is handsome and convincing.

From "Objects" in "Tender Buttons" by Gertrude Stein.

- Writer of many rags to riches novels with the same stock characters in them. - Subgenre of Bildungsroman which is German for coming of age novel in which a young character undergoes moral and social education through a series of often serendipitous events. - Most popular novel was " Ragged Dick".

Horatio Alger Jr.

- Regionalist writer with a posthumous recognition of her prominence in American letters. Single mother of six, she was a writer of women's issues and end of the century social norms and breaking them which made her a controversial writer for her time. Covered the Cajun and Creole population in Louisiana. - Most controversial work was "The Awakening" which damaged her reputation as a writer, other stories include "Bayou Folk", "A Night in Acadie" and "Desiree's Baby".

Kate Chopin.

- Real name Samuel Langhorne got his pen name from steamboat jargon. - Most famous works are " The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and " The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". - His writings addressed social ills and class differences and criticized slavery and social inequalities. - Mainly a regionalist writer of the south but also wrote about other topics and geographical areas such as his novel " Innocence Abroad" about his escapades in Europe and " Roughing it" about his travels through the wild west.

Mark Twain.

- Work inspired by industrial revolution. Brought to light the degrading conditions of industrial labor. - Considered a feminist writer because of the women protagonists in her books. - "Life in the Iron-Mills" is most popular work.

Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910).

- Regionalist writer from Maine, connected to other writers (Harriet Beecher Stowe), lived with Annie Adams Field (wife of late James Thomas Fields) after her husbands passing. - Two most noted works are " A Country of the Pointed Firs" and " A White Heron".

Sara Orne Jewett

- Writer of poetry, novels, and short stories. - Novels include "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" this novel is considered the first work of American naturalism. Most Known for "The Red Badge of Courage". - Short stories "The Open Boat" and "Nature versus Man". - Poems include "The Black Riders", "Other Lines", and "War is Kind".

Steven Crane.

- Novelist, writer of short stories, and pioneering feminist playwright. - Founded the Provincetown Players, a theatre group in NY. - Works include "Trifles" which also had a short story version called "A Jury of Her Peers". Play "Alison's House" won her the Pulitzer prize. She also wrote novels "The Morning is Near Us", "Norma Ashe", and "Judd Rankin's Daughter".

Susan Glaspell

- Written in picaresque style ( fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero). - Plot- Main character Tom lives with Aunt Polly who one day tells him to paint her fence. He tricks his friends into helping him. Tom goes with Huckleberry to a graveyard and they witness Injun Joe murder someone. Because of this they run away and the town eventually thinks they are dead. Tom sneaks back to witness his own funeral and then returns to town where he takes the fall for something Becky did to get her to like him again. He testifies in court against Injun Joe who escapes captivity and hides. When Tom and Huck are out on one of their adventures, they find Injun Joe who has a treasure he wants to bury , they turn him in and get a reward.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

- Novelist and journalist, many of his novels take place in Chicago. Mainly a naturalist writer, his characters don't understand and can't control the circumstances that surround their existence, morality is not a catalyst for individual improvement, and tragic outcome is common. - Novels include "Sister Carrie" and "An American Tragedy".

Theodore Dreiser.

- First African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard, then taught at various universities. One of the co-founders of the NAACP. - Advocated political and social intervention for change to come about, which was the opposite from the ideas of Booker T. Washington. Advocated for suffrage and political representation. - Discussed the double consciousness of African Americans, how they see themselves how others see them and not just as they see themselves. - Wrote "The Souls of Black Folk" collection of essays and stories, Editor of NAACP's journal "The Crisis". Wrote "Black Reconstruction in America".

W.E.B. Du Bois.