Hello guys,
in this period we will be talking about American realism in literature, period
that gathers very good writers who tried to face the reality that people lived
during and after the World War II. Here, we can see a variety of themes in
people’s writings, such as experiences and horror of the wars, racism,
poorness, etc. It was a multifaceted period which is something that
characterizes the USA culture and literature since its beginning. However, it
was captivating for me to realize of so many new things and also books that I
have read that belong to this period and that have been crucial in the development
of the American literature. One example is the book “The catcher in the Rye”
written by J.D Salinger (1919- ). “This book is centered on a sensitive 16
years-old, Holden Caulfield who flees his elite boarding school for the outside
world of adulthood, only to become disillusioned by its materialism and
phoniness.” (VanSpanckeren, Kathryn. 2001. Outline of American Literature. US
Department of State, page 106). I am pretty sure that all of you my fellows
remember that we read this book when we were in the course “advance English”.
Thus, like this book, there are many important facts that made of the realism
period as mesmerizing as other periods in the American literature, and I want
to share with you some of the events of this period that got my attention the
most.
First at all,
I did not know that realism was developed in different branches, being one of
these “Fiction”. Fiction after World War II was affected by changes in human
viewpoints. Here, we see so many social events such as: social protests, women’s
right movements, more media impact, etc. This entire social context influenced
in people’s point of view about life, and obviously in writers’ viewpoints to
write about too, therefore, in this postwar fiction we do not have heroes, but
on the contrary, anti heroes as in the case of “Holden Caulfield” in the book
“The catcher in the Rye”. This postwar fiction is also full of cynicism about
human value, humans who are always loners and isolated, and a defeated
personality that is almost always present in people’s writings. Some authors of
this moment are: Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Dos passos, Porter, Farrell,
among others.
Now I know
that not only Native American writers were taken into account as good legends
in literature, but also authors with different roots were involved in the
beginning of multiculturalism in American literature. Even tough, we have all
mentioned in our posts that the USA has been a country with settlements of people
from all over the world; the literary world had been dominated by Anglo Saxon descents
only, and people with different roots like African Americans, French,
Canadians, and immigrants from many countries had been marginalized;
nevertheless, all this inequality changed by the end of the nineteen century
and the end of the world war II. This introduction or freedom for not native
people to write gave to the USA literature a greater variety of literary
context that until now we can still enjoy.
Finally, I
would like to know whether these literary approaches such as: Naturalism, Fiction,
Meta fiction, etc, are still present in today's American literature or have
these approaches changed within the time??? =)...
Good Morning Gisselt. Reading what you have posted, let me tell you that you made me remind about "The catcher in the Rye" How to forget this amazing book about a guy that was complaining about everything because he did not feel loved by people. He was always thinking that people hated him and he was always doing things that ended up making him feel yellow or depressed. I guess that book was a great example about how people used to feel in this period. Besides, I'm very convinced that people during this period felt very discriminated by the color of their skin or probably by their poorness. however, the writers that emerged during this period were very gifted and talented that they did not want to be quiet towards unfortunate situations they had to live because of their condition. Indeed, these people were warriors due to they had to face many sad things but they always found out appropriate ways to get rid of discrimation. Also,women had to face discrimination, because there was a writer that was accused of being lesbian but she was not. I'm pretty sure that by the end of this period people started to be respected, no matter what their conditions were, society started to show a little bit of respect for them and they started to be treated like human beings.
ResponderEliminarHi Gisselt!!! It is totally true that this period was a multifaceted period and that is something that characterizes the US culture and literature since its beginning due to as we have been reading through out this course, we could have realized that American culture started with the influence of Indian works, so this period is characterized by having been vitalized by international currents such as European existentialism and Latin American magical realism, while the electronic era brought the global village (VanSpanckeren, 97). So, this period brough so many important things that were appealing to a new era full of a success in literature. There were a lot of writers that made great efforts in order to develop the literature with their works at that time. For example, you mentioned Salinger, the author of the book "The Catcher in the Rye", and in fact, I remembered that book was kind of hard to understand because it was written in old English. However, it was so interesting, and without any doubt, it was a great work to the American literature. On the other hand, as this period was multifaceted, we can find not only native American figures but also non-native due to many writer were immigrants from different countries. Nevertheless, their works were taken into account, and they were part of the US literature, this is something surprising because among those non-native writers there are blacks whose works were included into the literature although they were discriminated at the beginning.
ResponderEliminarHi! Gisselt
ResponderEliminarThis period as you have mentioned involves many aspects in different fields for that reason I consider that is too relevant in the history which began since 1914 and after the Second World Wars took more importance specially for all the events that happened during 1950s the, such as the idea of the modernization in the USA and the incorporation of the technology.
On the other hand there are many writers that made their contribution to the literature, also the struggle of Martin Luther King to can achieve The African-American Civil rights it was a event that is important to mention for this period of course, all the invasions that the USA made to differents countries are so relevant.
Hi Gisselt.!
ResponderEliminarI, like you, found so interesting to know about the book that we read, I mean "the catcher in the rye", that was part of the post-war era, and now I understand because of the feelings that the principal character had in the book we can compared them with the real feelings that people had during and after the war and not only that, I can mention also the racism that was involved in those years, something that Ralph Ellison had to face by doing a good work which was a novel whose name is Invisible Man, eventhough it was a folk novel, it locked a specific point of view of Ralph about the identity and individuality, I mean finding oneself and learning who one is, that's why its name...