Michelle Cure

10
August 23, 2018
English
Cecilia Lopez

American Realist

I. Realism, Steinbeck, and his legacy

II. American literature and Realism:

A. Definition of Realism
B. Background

III. Steinbeck:

A. Background
B. Point of view

IV. Legacy:

A. The impact in people

B. Examples of realism

V. Conclusion

VI. References

VII. Word count

Fantasy books are wonderful works that inspire us and transport us to amazing worlds but,

what happens when society needs to pay attention to its reality? What happens when such

disastrous events occur that even the fantasies that make us dream can’t distract us? These

conditions are specifically what writers faced in the time of the American Civil War. This period

of time was when realism emerged and with it its enterprising writers like John Steinbeck. Who

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saw the world from his own perspective and documented it. John Steinbeck left a legacy in which

other writers were inspired and he ended up being a famous figure in American literature.

Realism in American Literature can be defined as: a style and topic that represents American

peoples’ reality with stories that concentrate on making their characters relatable and at the center

of the narrative. These characters normally develop in a context of social strife, and the conflicts

they face are internal and moral. (Kaplan,1992, PP.1-3) Additionally, the genre is characterized

by its portrayal of verisimilar stories in which the characters have no amazing powers or looks

that make the struggle easier or embellish the story. As the writer William Dean Howells states,

“Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the true representation and treatment of material”.

(Campbell, Realism in American Literature, 2015). Realism, contrary to prior genres of American

literature, tells the raw truth of a society in a complicated historical period. Realism was born

thanks to the struggle of the American Civil War, guilty of making genres such as Romanticism,

Purism, and Transcendentalism unsatisfactory for society because of their optimistic, dreamy, and

fantastic tones, which didn’t resonate in people’s mindset at that difficult postwar time. People

were concentrated on their own battles against hunger, poverty, and violence. Because of this,

writers such as John Steinbeck based the narratives on common people, creating something

common people would enjoy and feel connected to (Realism in American Literature: Video

Lesson, 2017).

John Steinbeck was born in California on February 27, 1902. Son of Ernst Steinbeck and

Olive Hamilton, a well known man and a school teacher. Stainbeck studied literature at Stanford

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University where he was unable to graduate because he only attended classes that interested him.

He used the rest of his time in the fields with workers to use them as a source of inspiration for

their stories. With the publication of his book The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck won the Pulitzer

Prize which gave him wealth and recognition both good and bad. This was tortuous for Steinbeck

since he had been a very private and shy man since he was a child. Steinbeck was a rebel against

the distinguished customs of his family. Steinbeck's style was to concentrate on the real events of

everyday life and ordinary people. He was interested in the darker aspects of human nature

exposed the poverty in which his country was in times of war that many decided to ignore to be

delved into the romantic literature. (Biography: John Steinbeck: An American Writer,2017).

Steinbeck’s realistic novels portrayed the truth in an interesting way for people to read so that

people could connect more to their own time and what was actually happening. This, of course,

created controversy because even though people knew what their reality was, accepting it was a

whole different story. Also, those who were portrayed by him, those who inspired him, were not

always happy with his representation of them. Furthermore, Steinbeck wrote about important

topics, like politics, immigrants, poverty, hunger, social injustice and religion. These topics made

his style impossible to ignore, both then and now, in both good and bad ways. This inspired many

prominent authors, such as William Faulkner, Robert Burns, Sherwood Anderson, and Robert

Malory. Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying bears similarity with Steinbeck’s tone in the way they both

portray reality. Similarly, Sherwood Anderson is also known for his relatable short stories.

(Wooley,2014), (Mambrol,2018).

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 Taking into account everything that was said before, Steinbeck portrayed realism and did use

real stories and events as inspiration for his novels. However, it is very important to consider the

fact that under no circumstances could he have been able to do so objectively. He wanted to be a

reporter; he wanted to report reality. Instead, he used what he saw and did his own analysis. He

took real people and he accommodated them to his own ideas and preconceptions about them.

This is evident in the anger and dissatisfaction that his writing sparked in those who read the

characters inspired by them. Stainbeck ended up being a hero in American literature because of

his way of exposing reality, but for those people he was never able to expose their truth.

References:

Campbell, D. (2015) Realism in American Literature, 1860-1890. Literary Movements.:

Washington State University. Recovered
fromhttps://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm.

Erikson, E. (2017) [Video Lesson].

Kaplan, A. (1992), The Social Construction of American Realism. Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press.

Mambrol, N. (2018) The Realism of William Dean Howells. Literary Theory and Criticism
Notes. Recovered from https://literariness.org/2018/01/08/the-realism-of-william-dean-howells.

Smith, H. (2017), Biography: John Steinbeck: An American Writer [Documentary].

London: Biography.

Wooley, J. (2014) The Legacy of Wrath. Oklahoma: Oklahoma Magazine. Recovered

http://www.okmag.com/2014/10/24/the-legacy-of-wrath.