A03 Literary Context

Question 1

Realism

Answer 1

1855-1900.
Common characters - society corrupted by materialism.
Social realism aimed to change a specific social problem, civil war demanded truer literature

Question 2

Naturalism

Answer 2

1880-1900.
More brutal than realism.
Characters usually lower/middle class. Putting men against nature. Taboo topics

Question 3

Modernism

Answer 3

1900-1946

Fragmented. Alienation and disconnection. Faulkner? Grief over past. Stream of consciousness

Question 4

Harlem Renaissance

Answer 4

1920s

Celebrated African-American life. Allusions to African spirituals

Question 5

Big Boy Leaves Home - Richard Wright (1938)

Answer 5

Nomenclature- Big Boy, Bobo, Buck - dilly, dehumanising.

Descriptions animalistic - “blew like a hippopotamus”

Question 6

The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)

Answer 6

The husband, John, calls the woman a “little girl” - derogatory term like “beautiful little fool”.