User:Bulamutumumo
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Semester Essays In Lieu of a Semester Test
The novel that best follows the concepts of American Realism (Between The Grapes of Wrath and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), would have to be The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
In my opinion Twain created Bildungsromans# with American Realism concepts rather than pure American Realism novels. Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has the natural vernacular of the South combined with a comical/satirical tone that fits American Realism, while The Grapes of Wrath seems to have a simple tone of objectivity with the reader being expected to see allegories in ordinary objects and situations (In my opinion). In the aspect of character usage and treatment, Twain’s portrayal of his characters is more realistic than Steinbeck’s in the sense that Steinbeck seems to take the Naturalist view that humans are helpless objects in the pandemonium of humanity, while Twain seems to have his characters act like you would expect them to if you met them in the real world. The American Realism concept concerning the use of symbolism is that it should be limited and controlled, both authors have symbolism but Steinbeck doesn’t follow the concept of using symbolism sparingly. Steinbeck uses symbolism as heavy-handedly as Twain uses vernacular and pokes at organized religion. Twain doesn’t follow the concept of events being plausible by having the unusual happen, to make him better able to continue with the plot ,i.e. Huck being released as the corpse is being dug up to verify the existence of the tattoo. This is not as plausible as you would think, would you release a suspected fraud from your grip, one who was trying to take money away from a friendly neighbor and leave his daughters empty handed? If you would respond truthfully the answer would more often be no than yes (unless you lack empathy). I know in the story it says that there was gold in the coffin and everyone was reaching for it but in that situation it isn’t believable to have friends and neighbors being greedy, even digging up the corpse is not plausible to me since you wouldn’t want to disturb a beloved’s peace in the afterlife. Twain makes his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have more American Realism concepts by having his characters not react to the environment like Steinbeck does, he has Huck forge his path. Yes there are trials and tribulations in which he has not choice to react but that is to be expected in life. The family is more helpless and seem to move slowly towards California with no ability to do anything else, but the subject matter has to be considered. Steinbeck was writing about the Depression and the effects of it as his subject matter. It would be hard to have the individuals be in charge of their life since the Depression created a helpless situation for many Americans.
I have tried to be objective and consider that The Grapes of Wrath follows American Realism concepts as much as Twain does in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but I feel that Steinbeck follows more of a Naturalists view by implementing several concepts of that literature movement, like the helplessness of his characters to the whims of the external force (Society).
The four “modes” of fiction are: tragedy, comedy, romance and irony. Usually a tragedy is when a admirable hero falls from a high position to disaster or death, most people have The Tragedy of Julius Caesar enter their mind when they think of tragedy. Tragedy is usually referred to as a story where something bad happens where comedy is referred to as a happy story.( Keep in mind these are what uninformed people think). Comedy is when two lovers want to marry each other but are blocked from doing so by family or society (The comedy that pops into my head when I think of a comedy is Much Ado About Nothing, the original, not the movie starring Keanu Reeves). Romance is the cliché “rescue the princess” type of fiction. Irony unlike romance has no heroes and no victories, but has the world having injustice, crime and nonsense and more prevalent. Irony has less stories than romance after the civil war, but you have to consider society at the time, irony would seem to have been able to gain a foothold at the time of Grant’s presidency because of the corruption of many of the political figures of that time period. It would make sense to have authors write stories to show their discontent, but to my knowledge there isn’t any. The Jazz Age is when Fitzgerald’s stories were getting high prices and they were ironic (To the best of my knowledge). The earliest story I can find that seems to follow the “mode” of fiction, irony, would be Fitzgerald’s Winter Dreams ( I think there would be a earlier example but I couldn’t find it).
Unlike irony, romance was popular before the Civil War and was still prevalent to some extent after the civil war and the most recent example (That I have read) of this are the 1980’s fantasy books that are very easy to find in thrift stores. They have the basic structure of romance while implementing other influences from other sources to create a interesting story of a quest and a hero, while introducing a realistic view of the hero by exploring his motivation more than the older romance stories. So in short they are less shallow in my opinion.
Like each “mode” of fiction, tragedy has changed from the older examples by authors introducing new concepts in which they have implemented in their stories. I have read a couple tragedies that can be considered tragedies but they explore the physiological aspect like many modern stories do. Each “mode” of fiction has evolved to have this exploration of the mind, so I have to say each “mode” has been modernized almost into new genres by introducing these elements, they are considered ( At least by me) to be the one in the same.
The “mode” I see as the most changed has to be comedy. It is changed to the point that people believe that comedy and humor are synonymous, but in the the “modes” of fiction’s definition of comedy these new “comedies” aren’t comedy at all. They have the elements sometimes but more often than not they have none and are considered comedies. Comedy is the most changed “mode”.
Like all modes of expression, literature is influenced by the events of the past, present and some can argue the future. These influences changed the way stories are perceived and written just like the way music is changed and made to fit the current generation. In the collection #13 No Time for Heroes the collection matches the stories by having the stories have a main character that isn’t the stereotypical hero or isn‘t celebrated like they are in Romanticism . A key example is Soldier’s Home, a story about a soldier coming home too late and not receiving a hero’s welcome and having to see what his fellow soldiers have done with their lives and he has several problems varying from family trouble to having no idea what to do with his life. I have found The Life You Save My Be Your Own in this collection and have found it a good addition to this collection, it is the best story to show that this collection isn’t about the typical heroes but the unusual people that do things that aren’t heroic. Shiftlet (Yes it is a name that suit’s the man) isn’t a hero or is he a good guy to say the least. The story fits in this collection and gives a broadening of the collection’s topic. I have to say I find The Life You Save My Be Your Own oddly familiar to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and all the other stories too, because they all have the a resentment for the “hero is good” concept. The stories show that people aren’t all good or all evil but just humans. As a whole this collection does fit the title given to it by including stories that solidify that concept, but all the stories don’t have the same exact way of looking at the world. This is obvious since the authors are all individual and not as similar as their stories are to each other. While this collection only lasts 40 pages, it makes those 40 pages count by making it obvious why the title of the collection fits the stories contained in it.
ENTER HEADERS AND THE FOOTNOTE FOR BILDUNGSROMAN IN HUCK FINN ESSAY THAT READS Novels involving moral, spiritual, intellectual, and/or emotional education of a young hero or heroine and the reader is usually expected to identify with the main character and undergo the educational transformation also.
