The Realism Era - Faulkner, London, Sinclair and Twain - Essay Example

The Realism Era - Faulkner, London, Sinclair and Twain By Senior Literature Correspondent While America discusses how important Barack Obama’s race is to the presidential elections, interest has also been generated in long held views of the south and our world in general. Some of those views are real while others are based on mistaken beliefs. In fact, the search for reality has had an interesting history since realism was also a part of the literary movements which have been experienced by the world of American writers.

Amongst them Faulkner, London, Sinclair and Twain stand head and shoulders above the others while Faulkner and Twain given some of the best approaches to viewing and understanding real life particularly as it relates to life in the south during the times they discussed.Faulkner is one of the most important American writers of the last century and his work was well received and he became popular even in his own lifetime. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and the short stories written by Faulkner contributed a lot towards him getting this prize.

As a part of the realist movement, his stories focus on the realities of life as he saw and experienced them since many of stories are placed in the Yoknapatawpha County located in the state of Mississippi (Faulkner, 1949).At the same time, the placement of individual within the stories is also important since they are examinations of life in Southern America through the eyes of Faulkner. As described by Inge (1995, Pg. 283), the critics have noted that many of the tales written by Faulkner are “Studies of the manners, superstitions, loyalties and shortcomings of the South (Inge, 1995, Pg. 283)”. The collection of stories in Knight’s Gambit and A Rose for Emily in particular can be used as good examples of such writing.

Thus instead of focusing on romances which are spun in strange and foreign lands, Faulkner and others in the realist movement focused on the here and now particularly with regard to the location and the situation of the characters of the stories.The here and now is also an important factor for storytelling when it comes to Samuel Clemens who is better known by his pen name i.e. Mark Twain. He wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1884 and it is considered to be one of the great American novels since it was the first major work by an established author which uses the common speech patterns that had developed in Southern America at the time.

The story and the narrative are told in the first person by Huckleberry Finn as he engages in many adventures along the Mississippi river. However, as a piece of realist writing, the mood of the story often takes a very dark turn since it deals with real things which were present in America at the time such as slavery, lynching, social inequality and other evils (Bennett, 1974).In essence, realism and realist writers were perhaps reacting to what they saw around them but instead of looking at and taking inspiration from romantic ideals and nostalgic visions of what society should be like, they focused more on what society really was.

This is what gives value to realism and the works of authors who were working in the era and what makes their stories as well loved as they were when they were first written. In fact, this view of viewing people as they are and looking at society without tinted glasses is exactly what we need today.Works CitedBennett, J. 1974, ‘The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn’, Philosophy, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 1-9.Faulkner, W. 1949, Knights Gambit, Vintage Books.Inge, M. 1995, William Faulkner: The Contemporary Reviews, Cambridge University Press.