NAL 2022 Flashcards
Enumerate the most important dates in American History and their corresponding literary periods.
1607 Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America is established
1776 America declares independence from the English
1783 The American Revolutionary War ends
1861-1865 The American Civil War
1873 Great depression hits U.S.
In literature, the periods that followed can be classified as:
The Colonial Period (1607-1776)
The Revolutionary Period (‘The Age of Reason 1777-1810)
The Romantic Period (1810-1865)
Transcendentalism (1830s-1865)
Realism and Naturalism (1865-1920)
Modernism (1920-1945)
Discuss the events and movements that influenced the Naturalist and Realist movements
The Railroad Riots (1877) The Haymarket Square Riots (1886) The Panic of 1893 The Pullman Strike of 1894 The Freed Slaves Movement Suffragettes Immigrants resisting mistreatment
Discuss W.D. Howells’ attitudes toward literature, specifically Realism.
According to Howells, literature should reflect and play a major role in encouraging the social and political progress. Realism should have the following characteristics:
• depict commonplace activities, written in vernacular, …
• portray the widely divergent phases of American civilisation (local colour literature)
• being in ‘real’ pursuit of people‘s activities
• understanding the writer as a scientist, not an artist
How were Realism and Naturalism received? Discuss the key characteristics and differences between the two.
Realism was widely accepted. Authors strived to write about the ordinary, presenting life as it is without involving fine arts and finding meaning in the ordinary. The subject matter often included
• the common, the average, the unextreme, the representative,
• ordinary human lives in the context of normal social relationships
• everyday speech, simplicity of expression
Naturalism, on the other hand, was an extreme form of realism. It portrayed common people usually as well, but in the most brutal circumstances. The subject matter, which ranged from misery, poverty to extreme violence and prostitution. It often drew upon Darwinist theories and was heavily influenced by Emile Zola.
Who were the major representatives of Realism? Name them and at least two of their works.
- W.D. Howells; Criticism and Fiction (1891), A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), ), The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885).
- Henry James; The Europeans (1878), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Ambassadors (1903)
- Mark Twain; The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
Explain the term muckraker.
Muckrakers were journalists who aimed to expose the corruption and inhumane treatment of workers within establishments.
Who are the main representatives of American Naturalism? Name at least two of their works.
• Stephen Crane: Maggie, A Girl on the Street (1893)
The Red Badge of Courage (1895), ‘The Blue Hotel’
• Frank Norris: The Octopus (1901), The Pit (1903), Mc Teague (1899)
• Theodore Dreiser: The ‘Genius’ (1915), An American Tragedy (1925), Sister Carrie (1900)
Discuss one Stephen Crane novel in terms of themes, plot and character.
Stephen Crane’s A Red Badge of Courage is a story about men’s perseverance, bravery vs. cowardice, coming to age and the fellowship of man. It follows a young man during the Civil War who contemplates his own courage in the face of battle. Once he is faced with the enemy, he flees and comes upon his injured comrades. He is without ‘a red badge of courage’ aka a scar until he is actually injured. He is tested once again and fights valiantly.
Discuss one Theodore Dreiser’s novels in terms of themes, plot and characters.
Characters: Carrie Meeber Charles Drouet George Hurstwood Bob Ames
Plot:
Carrie Meeber doesn’t start out rich or popular. In fact, when we first meet her, she’s just a shy, timid teenager leaving home for the first time to try to scrape together a living in the big city of Chicago. But it doesn’t take her very long to figure out what she really wants: to be rich and famous. She’s absolutely certain that money and fame will bring her the ultimate happiness, and she makes it her mission to achieve them.
Along the way, Carrie’s quest drives her to enter into some pretty sketchy relationships with men, and it puts quite a strain on some of her friendships, too. But she eventually becomes a big star and manages to get everything she wanted: a boatload of money, a killer wardrobe, and more fans than anyone.
Despite all this though, Carrie ends up feeling terribly lonely. She realizes that even though she seems to have tons of friends, she doesn’t have anyone who really understands her or to whom she feels truly connected.
Themes:
Women and femininity, society and class, isolation, morality and ethics, ambition, marriage, …
Discuss one of Frank Norris’ works in relation to theme, plot and characters.
McTeague is a novel by Frank Norris, which follows the story of an unlicensed dentist, who wins the heart of a recently-rich woman but takes her from his friend. It is an attempt by Norris to portray how one's heredity (McTeague's proclivity to violence and alcoholism from his father, his mother's ambition, ...) and social/economic status influences the life of an individual (to an extreme level, of course). The novel ends by him beating his wife, Trina Sieppe, to death after she refuses to give him more money and he ends up being chased down by his friend Marcus in the Death Valley. Before Marcus is killed by McTeague as well, Marcus chains them together and McTeague is left in the desert with no water, chained to a rotting corpse. Characters: McTeague Marcus Schouler Trina Sieppe
Discuss one of Upton Sinclair’s works in terms of plot, theme and characters.
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is an important piece of American Literature because it showed the brutal realities of factory work to the American public. It follows a Latvian immigrant family, the Rodkus’ and the Lukoszaties’ trying to chase the American dream in Chicago. However, the family is struck by one disaster after another (Jurgis gets cheated on, Ona gets raped, Stanislovas gets eaten alive by rats, Jurgis has an accident at work, children die, grandparents die, Marija becomes a prostitute and drug addict, Ona dies during childbirth, …) and they, and the reader, are faced with disillusionment of the American dream. In the end, socialism is presented as the only answer with Jurgis fervently following this ideology.
Characters: Jurgis Rudkus Ona Lukoszaite Marija Berczynskas (Ona's cousin) Teta Elzbieta (Ona's stepmother) Stanislovas Lukoszaite (oldest child of Elzbieta)
Discuss one of Jack London’s (John Griffith Chaney) novels in terms of themes, plot and characters.
The Call of The Wild follows a physically gifted dog named Buck who is sold and shipped from California to Alaska which had a shortage of sled dog. He soon learns “the law of club and fang,” and adapts a ‘kill-or-be-killed’ mentality after being ‘trained’ by a man and becomes a sled dog. He ends up struggling with another sled dog on his team called Spitz and eventually kills him. Soon they are bought by an incompetent trio who end up killing everyone, including themselves though Buck makes it out alive by being saved by a kind man, John Thornton. After a short life with Thornton, who is kind to Buck, the dog is torn between being part of the human world or being part of a wild wolf pack. In the end, fate decides for him as Thornton is killed by the Yeehat tribe and Buck finally joins the wild pack as their leader.
Characters:
Buck
Spitz
John Thornton
Manuel (sells Buck from Californian family, gardener)
Discuss one of Kate Chopin’s works in terms of themes, plot and characters.
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is a story about a woman’s search for individuality outside of the confines of domesticity. Edna Pontellier is a perfect wife and vacations on an island in the Gulf of Mexico with her family. A man called Robert Lebrun is flirting with her whom she eventually develops feelings for. With her is her friend Adele, who remains the perfect domestic wife throughout the novel and represents what Edna could have stayed like. Edna yearns for independence and is surprised when Robert leaves after a summer of flirting. Edna becomes sick and her husband tries to find help, but it’s no good. Her husband leaves on a business trip and Robert returns, confessing his affection and asking her to marry him. But Edna realises she does not want to be confined in marriage, so Robert leaves again. Devastated, Edna returns to their vacation place because of severe loneliness. She goes for a swim as she contemplates her life, her love and presumably drowns as she is far from shore and her arms and legs are weak.
Characters:
Edna Pontellier
Adele Ratignolle (friend, perfect housewife, encourages her to paint, art cannot interfere with motherhood)
Mademoiselle Reisz (pianist, encourages her art, single)
Discuss one of Willa Cather’s works in terms of themes, plot and characters.
O Pioneers! is an American naturalist novel that follows the life of a Swedish immigrant family from Nebraska. It is a coming-of-age story of Alexandra Bergson, the eldest of the family, as she tries to make it in the world. The novel spans 30 years and is written in 5 parts. In part one her father, John Bergson, dies, leaving his four children and wife alone in the harsh environment. In the second part however, due to Alexandra's excellent farming skills, the family earns a small fortune due to the lands lush and populous renewal. The third part follows winter and part four gets really dramatic. Emil, Alexandra's youngest brother, flirts with Marie Shabata, their neighbour, who is married to Frank. Emil decides to leave the situation and moves to Mexico. When he returns in part for, Marie confesses her love to him and, while he initially rejects her, he wishes to be with her after witnessing his friend's death. However, Frank kills them both. In part 5, Frank is serving time and Alexandra is deciding between a childhood love Carl and the her home. Characters: Alexandra Bergson Emil Bergson John Bergson Carl Linstrum Marie Shabata Frank Shabata
Discuss one of James Weldon Johnson’s works in terms of theme, plot and characters.
The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured man is fictional autobiography based largely on the life of James Weldon Johnson. The Ex-Coloured Man (ECM) was born to a black mother and a wealthy white father, who is absent from ECM’s life but still provides for them. ECM grows better off than most black people at the time and is educated in an integrated school where he understands for the first time that he is black. He makes a friend, Shiny, who is the top student of the school. His mother dies after his high school and he becomes more integrated into black society after moving to Jacksonville and learns to understand the three black social classes –> those who are desperate, those who work for the white man and those whose lives remain untouched by the white man (upper class).
