ENG 333 Exam #2

everything must be discussed, all classes, all stages of life. adequately and accurately depict them and your golden.

As long as you are honest and it offends social norms, whatever writing style you use is okay. You have to be open and honest about human principle.

Uses naturalism as a vehicle to criticize realism and its beliefs. Realism should not be merely entertaining but should "penetrate the surface of things." Realistic characters should not be middle class or have "teacup tragedies"
Writing should expand on the type of lifestyles known to the readers
these stories can have extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, its okay to draw on romanticism as long as the story is not controlled or framed by it

aid we have literary expectations of what grasshoppers are supposed to do, so we should go back to reality.

realism is the writer's ability to depict relatable and plausible experiences. emphasis is on accuracy rather than attractiveness, but howells also says that truth IS beauty. "Realism excludes nothing that is true." "truth is beauty, but beauty is also tragedy because its fleeting."

Henry James
realism must be based solely on stories written from experience, and encourage the reader to see beyond the superficial plot. No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind because any good writing must be true.
however, the experience in question can be fleeting or lifelong, hence he advises writers to be someone on whom nothing is ever lost

In the racial politics of the United States, racial passing refers to a person classified by society as a member of one racial group (usually mixed-race African American) choosing to identify with a different group (usually white), usually by appearance. The term was used especially in the US to describe a person of mixed-race heritage assimilating to the white majority.

the literary technique[1] of using non-standard spelling to approximate a pronunciation that is actually no different from the standard pronunciation[2][3] but has the effect of dialectal, foreign, or uneducated speech.

"Looka theah, folkses!" cried Elijah Mosley, slapping his leg gleefully, "Theah they go, big as life an' brassy as tacks."

race, duels, gender, justice, honor, "good blood"

self fulfilling prophesy -- Tom got sold down the river regardless

Puddn'head Wilson's calendar-- little pithy quotes for each chapter

"if he had half the dog, he'd kill his half"

Lafcadio Hearn-- "the wife of his youth" and the blue-vein society

door to door salesmanship

humorous illustrations

intrigue-- whodunit plot and interest in finger printing

Twain's weird obsession with twins-- "linked and divided self"

Fantasie Printaniere-- the characters McTeague and Ryer fail to overcome the inner "brute" or animalistic self that Norris believed was within every individual, deterministic view on domestic violence. The wives meet, talk about their drunken husbands, compared bruises, then get in an argument about one not thinking the other knows “what a good thrashun is” (935)

in the south it was believed that blacks were intellectually inferior to white and were raised that way, perpetuating the stereotype

ex. Tom and Chambers in Puddn'head Wilson

Washington -- UP FROM SLAVERY-- was a gradualist and thought that the newly freed african americans should learn practical skills, "Yes, there was segregation and racism but this time was the most opportune time to raise a black family. We were a community back then. It was a time when black businesses flourished. To be completely honest integration was the worst thing to happen to black businesses and schools. Because of this Washington’s idea of self reliance is going to be difficult. How are going to be self reliant when few support black businesses."

Du Bois-- THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS-- thought that blacks should go to college and attempt to assimilate immediatly, Dubois in that the African American community “is going to be saved by its exceptional men”. By exceptional men, I mean the men and women who are educated, authors, lawyer and doctors. But these exceptional men and women are going to have to create a giving atmosphere when they advance and bring up the next generation, which is in accordance with Washington’s ideals

competition, society of winners and losers, criticizing the American dream

Naturalism (literature), in literature, the theory that literary composition should be based on an objective, empirical presentation of human beings.

1. Naturalistic writers regard human behavior as controlled by instinct, emotion, or social and economic conditions.

2. They reject free will, adopting instead the biological determinism of Charles Darwin and the economic determinism of Karl Marx.

3. Notable American writers of naturalistic fiction are John London, Frank Norris, Sherwood Anderson, John Dos Passos, and Theodore Dreiser

C. Naturalism is based on the presumption that humans are like animals in the natural world.

1. As a result, humans respond to environmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they have either control or full knowledge.

2. In Freudian terms, it’s literature written to demonstrate how the id dominates the ego and superego.


Naturalism concludes that people’s decisions are predetermined by the scientific or natural forces that predispose people to act a certain way.

-survival of the fittest
-no free will or choice

position that human life is determined by environmental forces, not by free will

This distinction may be illustrated in this way.

1. Given a block of wood and a force pushing upon it, producing in it a certain acceleration:

a. Realism will tend to concentrate its attention on the accurate description of that particular block, that special force, and that definite acceleration to explain how the specific factors lead to the reaction.

b. Romanticism will tend to see in the entire operation an illustration or symbol or suggestion of a philosophical truth and will so represent the block, the force, and the acceleration as representatives of that truth.

c. Naturalism will tend to see in the operation a clue or a key to the scientific law which undergirds it and to be interested in the relationship between the force, the block, and the produced acceleration, and will so represent the operation that Newton’s first law of motion is demonstrated or proved by this representative instance of its universal occurrence in nature.