Naturalism Project 2

Today in class, we were chastised for our idiocy and mortally threatened for our failure to blog. Fear was struck into our very hearts and souls as we were told that we were all going to fail. And probably die. In spite of our terror, however, Georgina and I managed to make a bit of progress on our project. During the class, we primarily reviewed what we had already researched and examined. Georgina summarized some of what we had gone over the previous day, and I discovered that the Norton textbook contains a very helpful section about the exact years in American history that our projects are supposed to be about. Naturally I spent the remainder of the class looking at that.

--Wald der Sportlich

Naturalism Project

Mr. Cook assigned us a project on Naturalism today. We are required to THINK. Unfortunately, this process is foreign to many of us, and might actually require some effort to be put forth on our parts. I am in a group with the charming Miss Georgina Meyer. We have already made a decent amount of progress on this assignment. I have been reading about the philosophical definition of Naturalism, as well as how it differs from other philosophies of the time. I have also been reading about American history from 1865 to 1914. Georgina has been researching Naturalism specifically as it applies to American literature. She has also been studying the Gilded Age. We have already compiled a number of reliable, peer-reviewed sources and amassed some information about our subject.

--Wald der Shrecklich

"An Episode of War"

Stephen Crane's short story "An Episode of War" is a brief account of a lieutenant getting shot and the reactions of the people around him. Crane is very meticulous in his explicit description of the situation. We were required to read his piece because of its alleged usage of Realism and Naturalism. The Realism in this work is not difficult to notice; at no point in the story is anything described in a particularly subjective way. Moreover, none of the characters attempt to extrapolate upon or find greater meaning in any of the sparse events. The only Naturalistic aspect that I notice about this piece, however, is in the lack of "higher power" philosophies. In a way, I suppose that could be considered Naturalism, but I'm mainly taking Mr. Cook's word for it. On an unrelated note, I found the ending darkly hilarious.

--Wald der Gemein

Daisy Miller

Daisy Miller is a novella by Henry James published in 1878. It tells the tale of a young girl named Daisy and her adventures in Europe, and more importantly, how she and her actions are viewed a young Swiss man named Winterbourne. Despite the disapproval of Mrs. Costello, Winterbourne quickly falls in love with Daisy, noting that her spunkiness and spontaneity set her apart from the more formal and uptight European women. However, Daisy moves to Rome and becomes involved with an older man named Giovanelli. Winterbourne travels to Rome and tries to warn Daisy to change her ways for the sake of her reputation, but she doesn't listen. Eventually, Winterbourne gives up on Daisy, deciding that she isn't worth worrying about. Daisy dies shortly after.
Daisy is representative of a young, naïve America. She personifies a lot of Americans at the time, who had never been to or been educated about Europe. A running theme throughout Daisy Miller is innocence. Winterbourne is continually debating whether or not Daisy is innocent, and in the end, it is because he believes that she has lost her innocence that she dies. Had Winterbourne believed her to still be corrigible, he would have saved her  from the malaria she contracted at the Coliseum in the night air. Finally, another theme that underlies James' work is the stability versus the misfortune of an unlived life. Winterbourne, because he plays it safe, outlives Daisy, and possibly avoids more heartbreak than he already suffered, but at the same time, he never pursues the girl he thought he loved, so he never really knows what could have happened.

--Wald der Sterbend 

Realism and Naturalism

American Realism was a literary movement around the mid to late 1800's characterized by a focus on the realities of everyday life. As opposed to depicting fanciful, unrealistic protagonists with unbelievable strengths, abilities, and situations, Realist literature focused on the relatable common man. Famous realist authors included Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Upton Sinclair, and William Dean Howells.
Naturalism was a movement that took Realism a step further. It focused on the realistic, ubiquitous aspects of life, but also suggested that these aspects exist for a greater, universal reason. In other words, hierarchy, social structure, and natural instincts all exist because of predetermined meaningful purpose. Naturalist writers included John Steinbeck, Abraham Cahan, Edith Wharton, and Jack London.

--Wald der Unklug

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a short story with a very interesting twist by Ambrose Bierce. The first thing one notices when reading this story is the gratuitous amount of detail devoted to describing everything from the scenery to the physical states of the characters to the actions that the characters perform. It is divided into three parts. The first part, simply a snapshot of a situation, describes a setting where a man is about to be hanged. The second part gives the back story of Peyton Farquhar and why he is being hanged. The third part is where most of the action in the story takes place and consists of Farquhar's apparent escape and journey to meet his family before it is revealed that everything just took place in his imagination. The actual events that make up the third section of the story really only take up an instant as Farquhar falls to his death. The ending where this fact is revealed hit the reader as hard as the rope hits the protagonist's neck in a cruelly ironic twist that is can even be very darkly humorous. Just as Farquhar truly learns to love and appreciate every single aspect of life, he dies. On a personal note, this is one of my favorite short stories of all time.

--Wald der Ausgeruht

"The War Prayer" and "To the Person Sitting in Darkness"

Among many other controversial views, Mark Twain is well known for holding very strong views against Western imperialism. He often expressed his contempt for such practices through satire, a tactic of which he was a master. Two of Twain's more notable works condemning imperialism are "The War Prayer" and "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." "The War Prayer" details a church service wherein the attendees pray for success in battle. As the prayer progresses, the speaker describes increasingly violent and grotesque things, all the while keeping a cheerful and pious tone. The work leads the reader to ponder the implications of asking a holy, benevolent God for aid in war. "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" is an essay that sarcastically censures America's involvement in China and the Philippines, the Boer War, and imperialism in general. The piece refers to foreign invasion as a Game, and names certain political figures such as William McKinley and Joseph Chamberlain as masters of the Game. Twain describes war crimes and atrocities in a flippant, matter-of-fact tone that leads one to reflect on how terrible our actions in less developed countries actually were.

--Wald der  Faul 

"They shut me up in Prose" - Emily Dickinson

They shut me up in Prose –

As when a little Girl

They put me in the Closet –

Because they liked me “still”   –

Still! Could themself have peeped –

And seen my Brain – go round –

They might as wise have lodged a Bird

For Treason – in the Pound –

Himself has but to will--

And easy as a Star

Look down opon Captivity –

And laugh – No more have I –

   "They shut me up in Prose" seems to provide almost something of an origin story to Emily Dickinson's poetic career. The poem itself is fairly straightforward: it describes how when Dickinson was a child, she was often put in a closet to keep her quiet, and this is what led her to start writing. Aside from the obvious though, "They shut me up in Prose" also presents the idea of physical versus metal captivity. Even though young Emily was physically locked up in a closet, her captors had no control over the freedom of her mind, which manifested itself in her "Prose." It is not unlikely even that she only came to this realization because of her time trapped in a closet, which doubtless gave her a great deal of time to think and reflect.

--Wald der Frei

The Turn of the 19th Century

The period of time in America around the late 18th century and early 19th century was one of tremendous change, in both the structure of society and the ideas of thinkers and philosophers. Much of the change was due the the Industrial Revolution, which unleashed a flood of new ideas and inventions upon the people of the United States. Suddenly, once difficult tasks and chores could be done in much less time using much less work. These technological advents allowed much more time for people to think and philosophize. Furthermore, many important and revolutionary scientific breakthroughs were made during the 19th century, arguably the most notable being Darwin's work on evolution. The publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859 completely changed the way that people looked at life, religion, and nearly everything about the world around us. Secularism become more prominent as people were forced to rethink their own existence. In short, the zeitgeist of the 19th century might best be described as simply: change.

--Wald der Asiatisch