Realism

Question 1

Characteristics

Answer 1

• Reaction against Romanticism/Gothic
• Second half of 19th century
• International (Stendhal, Flaubert, Dostojewsky, Pushkin, Twain, etc.)
• Representation of ordinary things as they are
• Avoidance of implausible, exotic or supernatural elements
• Novel as primary genre —> roots in the 18th century

Question 2

Features of Realist Fiction

Answer 2

• Verisimilitude (= Wahrhaftigkeit)
• ‘Simple’ language
• Omniscient narrator
• Middle-class characters
• Interest in individuals’ emotions,
character, etc.
• Social issues (class, gender, etc.)

Question 3

Jane Austen

Answer 3

Works
• Sense and Sensibility
• Pride and Prejudice
• Mansfield Park
• Emma
• Northanger Abbey
• Persuasion

• Themes: domesticity, society, marriage, money

• Stylistic devices:
- Irony
- Conversation
- Free indirect discourse

Question 4

Free Indirect Discourse

Answer 4

• Representation of a character’s consciousness in third-person narration
• Mixture of psychonarration and interior monologue
• Less formal in syntax, exclamations, ellipses, mimicking of character’s way of speaking, etc
• Avoidance of “he/she said”, etc
• Impression of immediacy
• “Dualvoice” —> third-person narrator and character merge