After reading a literary piece from both Realism and Naturalism, You can state there are many differences in the two. “ Life on the Mississippi ” , written by Mark Twain, is an first-class piece that reflects features of Realism.
The beginning of the 2nd paragraph in chapter four shows how Realistic writers wrote about incidents of mundane life. It reads, “ Once a twenty-four hours a cheap, gaudy package arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events, the twenty-four hours was glorious with anticipation ; after them, the twenty-four hours was a dead and empty thing. ” These sentences are really self explanatory demoing the simpleness of every twenty-four hours and it ‘s exhilaration or deficiency thereof. An of import portion of pragmatism is portraying realistic and true descriptions while doing the reader feel as if they were sitting right at that place watching and sing it all. In the same paragraph Twain describes in great item the features of the town: “ the white town drowsing in the sunlight of a summer ‘s forenoon ; the streets empty, or reasonably about so ; one or two clerks sitting in forepart of the Water Street shops, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the walls, mentums on chests, chapeaus slouched over their faces, asleep-with shingle-shavings plenty around to demo what broke them down ; a sow and a litter of hogs buming along the pavement. ” Besides the manner he spoke about the town ‘s people and their occupations showed revealed another Realism feature. This characteristic is seting the primary focal point towards the urban in-between category. The writer uses more item when depicting the steamboat as it coasts down the river. Besides by the manner Twain described the steam boat, it shows the mercenary side of Realism. He writes, “ She is long and crisp and spare and reasonably ; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a aureate device of some sort swung between them ; a notional pilot-house ” . He shows more philistinism and fight through the enviousness that all the immature male childs showed towards the deck manus of the boat. The male child showed great involvement in working on the steamboat so everyone would envy him. He was realistic though in thought that his desire to work on a steamboat was merely a dream because the opportunity of him really working on one was non likely.
One of the other male childs he knew had n’t been heard from since rather some clip and so showed up one twenty-four hours as an learner applied scientist. The male child was shocked to see him as an learner applied scientist. He said, “ This shook the bottom out of all my Sunday-school instructions. That male child had been notoriously worldly, and I merely the contrary ; yet he was exalted to this distinction, and I left in obscureness and wretchedness. ” This truly showed the unfavorable judgment of societal environment and morality the writer was seeking to portray. Soon after he displayed even more philistinism by doing remarks on the learner applied scientist ‘s visual aspect. He mentioned things like his Ag ticker, gold concatenation, hair oil, leather belt and his money. Not merely were people really competitory and mercenary, they were ever scrambling around to acquire what they want. So every bit true as it is in Realism, this narrative every bit good shows characters scrambling for what they want. Twain writes, “ Boy after male child managed to acquire on the river. The curate ‘s boy became an applied scientist. The physician ‘s and the postmaster ‘s boy became “ clay clerks ” ; the sweeping spirits trader ‘s boies of the county justice, became pilots. ” Then he mentioned, “ Now some of us were left disconsolate. We could non acquire on the river-at least our parents would n’t allow us. ” This scrambling for the dream of working on a steamboat caused another common feature of Realism, withdrawal. The male child ran off from place and said he would n’t come back until he was a pilot and could return in all his luster.
Chapter five starts out by reading, “ Months afterward the hope within me struggled to a loath decease, and I found myself without an aspiration. ” Subsequently on in the narrative, the male child besides mentioned the broad and glooming sea and that he was likely to smother from the hazard that seemed so at hand. These both are good illustrations that show the common feature of a darker vision of life that Realists tend to hold. Another common trait of Realism is how each character in the narrative use their ain natural everyday slang. Once the male child took transition on the Paul Jones, Twain described some of the people that crossed his way. One was a mate that worked on the boat. “ When he gave even the simplest order, he discharged it like a blast of lightning, and sent a long, resounding roll of profanity thundering after it. ” Another mate would state things like, “ Here, now, start that gangplank for’ard! Lively, now! What ‘re you about! Snatch it! Snatch it! There! There! Aft once more! Aft once more! Do n’t you hear me? Dart it to dart! Are you traveling to kip over it! ‘Vast heave. ‘Vast heave, I tell you! Traveling to heave it clear astern? Where ‘re you traveling with that barrel! For’ard with it’fore I make you get down it, you dash-dash-dash-dashed split between a tired mud-turtle and a halt hearse-horse! ” This manner of talking decidedly showed the mundane slang. It is difficult to understand some of it unless you work on the steamboat, but the male child wished he could speak like that. Another feature of Realism is to hold no tensenesss or flood tides. I disagree with that construct in this narrative. This extract from “ Life on the Mississippi ” , shows some tenseness and a spot of flood tide when their steamboat could ‘ve crashed. The people were panicking because non merely could their boat be destroyed but the lading and the people on board would be lost every bit good. The author uses the words, “ upon the vertex of catastrophe a individual enormous blink of an eye. ” Even if I did n’t cognize what the narrative entailed, It would top out my wonder because of the tenseness it displays.
“ Chickamauga ” written by Ambrose Bierce is one of the narratives featured for the Naturalism period. One of the differences between Realism and Naturalism is that Realism is non supposed to hold flood tides and the narrative, “ Chickamauga ” , has a great flood tide at the terminal. Although “ Life on the Mississippi ” shows a flood tide to the narrative, there is a large difference in the flood tide of “ Chickamauga ” , because it is much bigger. The terminal of the narrative unfolds a flood tide of the combustion edifice being the kid ‘s place, his female parent being dead. The author besides gives the reader a flood tide on top of that by stating us that the kid is deaf. Another constituent of Naturalism is how the characters are motivated by heredity. In the first paragraph Bierce conveys, “ from the cradle of its race it had conquered its manner through two continents and go throughing a great sea had penetrated a 3rd, there to be born to war and rule as a heritage. ” This truly explains why the kid had the thought procedure of contending and war that he did. Besides the small male child made a wooden blade because his male parent had been a soldier. This besides was motivated by heredity. Naturalism typically shows characters in lower ranks of life and the small male child was a boy of a hapless plantation owner. In Naturalism there is a focal point on the environment and fortunes. Because of his controlled environment, he gained freedom by explicating and gambling off from his place in the field to a nearby wood. Another characteristic is finding. Bierce showed that finding in the continuity of household and friends seeking to happen the lost male child. Fictional characters in Naturalism were motivated by chemical science, their heredity and their environment or fortunes. He writes, “ In desperation he flung in his blade — -surrender to the superior forces of nature. His military calling was at an terminal. ” That helps demo the motive from the environment. He let the environment control his actions. Because the environment was so powerful, he gave up his blade.
Realism has its features of being really ordinary, natural and realistic. It makes everything seem as if you were sing it for yourself. Besides the manner it is generated for in-between category readers and shows no flood tides are really different than Naturalism. Naturalism characters were more from the lower ranks of life and these characters were deterministic and mechanistic which is the complete antonym from Realism. Both literary motions display many features, but as you can see, both Realism and Naturalism are really different.
