Realism Flashcards
(58 cards)
Third Person Objective
Narrator reports without comment, as a camera would record a scene (no thoughts or feelings)
Third Person Omniscient
Narrator knows everything about all characters or events (including thoughts and feelings)
Third Person Limited Omniscient
- narrator zooms in on thoughts and feelings of a single character
- includes free indirect discourse narrative mode
Free indirect discourse narrative mode
Narrator shared in the consciousness of the character being described, adopting his attitudes, assumptions, and characteristic mode of speech
“A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a
footing for him and his executioners—two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his
rifle in the position known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest—a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did notappear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the
center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.
An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge
By: Ambrose Bierce
3rd Person Objective
An Occurence At Owl Street Bridge Summary
Peyton Farquhar (a southern planter) is going to be hanged for trying to help the southern cause by sabotage (trying to set fire to driftwood by the bridge)
“The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the
cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down
between two ties”
3rd Person objective (Reality)
“The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his “unsteadfast footing,” then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current.”
Changes to 3rd Person Limited Omniscient Reality
How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!
3rd Person Limited Omniscient (Illusion)
Free Indirect Discourse
“He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banksat some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift—all had distracted him”
3rd Person Limited Omniscient (Reality)
“And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignorenor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke
ofablacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by—it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each stroke with impatience and—he knew not why—apprehension. The
intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he would shriek.
3rd Person Limited Omniscient (illusion)
Free Indirect Discourse
What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
”
3rd Person Objective (REality)
One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the enterance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water, her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.”
3rd Person Omniscient (Reality)
He was a Federal scout.
Switches to 3rd Person Omniscient Because a camera wouldnt know he was a spy
Objective -> Omniscient
Psychological Realism
Realistic Treatment of reality vs. illusion
-uses point of view
Ambrose Bierce
An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge
Pysocological Realism
1842-1914
Disappeared during travels to Mexico
Devices used in An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge
- demonstrates the human capacity for self delusion and fantasy
- when faced with reality the mind can’t accept, the mind escapes to fantasy
- terror of death heightens sense perceptions and distorts passage of time
- uses ellipsis, dashes, diction to convey heightened sense perception and time distortion
- emphasizes in a realistic way the differences btwn reality and illusion
Stephan Crane
The Open Boat
Naturalist
-also wrote the Red Badge of Courage
“None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. Many a man ought to have a bathtub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea. These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall,and each froth top was a problem in small boat navigation.
Open Boat
- Humans are unfortunate victims
- nature is indifferent to human survival “these waves were most wrongfully and barbarously tall, and each froth top was a problem in small boat naviagation”
“ A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-foot dinghy one can get an idea of the resources of the sea in the line of waves that is not probable to the average experience, which is never at sea in a dinghy. As each slaty wall of water approached, it shut all else from the view of the men in the boat, and it was not difficult to imagine that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last effort of the grim water. There was a terrible grace in the move of the waves, and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the crests. In the wan light, the faces of the men must have been gray. Their eyes must have glinted in strange ways as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed from a balcony, the whole thing would doubtlessly have been weirdly picturesque. But the men in the boat had no time to see it, and if they had had leisure there were other
things to occupy their minds. The sun swung steadily up the sky, and they knew it was broad day because the color of the sea changed from slate to emerald green,streaked with amber lights, and the foam was like tumbling snow. The process of the breaking day was unknown to them. They were aware only of this effect upon
the color of the waves that rolled toward them
Excerpt From: Jago, Carol. “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Literature Grade 11.” v2.0. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. iBooks.
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Open Boat
Nature = indifferent to survival of humans
(A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats)
Humans = hopeless victims
“In the meantime the oiler and the correspondent rowed. And also they rowed. They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed an oar. Then the oiler took both oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then the oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed”
Open Boat
Uses repetion to sure monotony and boredom
“If I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?” During this dismal night, it may be remarked that a man would conclude that it was really the intention of the seven mad gods to drown him, despite the abominable injustice of it. For it was certainly an abominable injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard, so hard. The man felt it would be a crime most unnatural. Other people had drowned at sea since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but still— When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no
bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers. Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: “Yes, but I love myself.” A high cold star on a winter’s night is the word he feels that she says to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation.
Excerpt From: Jago, Carol. “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Literature Grade 11.” v2.0. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/1myDL.n
One character rails against the “abominable injustice” of nature.
But is nature is not unjust? Crane suggest instead that nature is indifferent?
“nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him”
Naturalism
Literary movement (late 1800s-1920s)
- outgrowth of realism
- heavily influenced by new scientific insights in the fields of psychology, heredity, sociology, and economics
- has characteristics of realism
Characteristics of Naturalism
- humans are driven by internal instincts/emotions and external forces (environment, weather) beyond their control
- humans = helpless, unfortunate victims of these forces
- grim, deterministic world view
- nature is indifferent to human struggle for survival
