English 11A Glossary - Technical Words
English 11A Vocab List - Vocabulary Words
Reminder!
These notes are to help you study and remind you what will be covered by the Post-Test! You still need to re-read the Reading Selections (and go back to take a second look at the "Analysis" Sections in Edmentum)!
Realism originated as a nineteenth-century artistic movement that rebelled against the romantics. While the romantics felt that art should show the ideal, realist artists and writers focused on truth, rather than beauty. They depicted the everyday world as it existed around them.
For example, the French painter Louis Robert Carrier-Belleuse illustrated the labor of the working class in the mid-1800s. The reality of such gritty subjects wouldn't have been addressed in romantic art. Many romantic paintings show beautiful scenes with idealized characters and situations, and romantic literature often describes such scenes.
The American realism movement began around the end of the Civil War in 1865 and lasted to the beginning of the twentieth century. As scientific and rationalist ideas progressed, American writers began creating literature that avoided idealism and sentimentality. Instead, realist writers sought to show life as it actually was. Authors such as Robert Frost, Mark Twain, Charles W. Chesnutt, and Henry James focused their writing on real-life situations with true-to-life characters. They wrote as though they were documenting true events and included realistic speech patterns, gritty characters, and even unhappy endings.
Another text that illustrates realism is Mark Twain's story “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg.” The characters in the story are all middle-class citizens of the town Hadleyburg.
The plot is set in motion by a stranger who tempts the townspeople with a bag of gold to reveal the truly dishonest nature of Hadleyburg. The story mainly focuses on the characters’ reactions, dialogues, and insecurities that are brought forward by the idea of obtaining the money. Twain uses common language dialect and remains objective in narrating the story. The story’s focus on the middle-class characters and the complex ethical choice of honesty are characteristics of realist literature.
Chestnutt was an African American writer whose work explored and represented many of the themes in American Realist literature, particularly around issues of race and social identity. Chestnutt was born in 1858 as the grandson of a white enslaver and son of two free African Americans. As a result, he was interested in the complex issue of racial identity in the post-Civil War South.
While growing up in Indiana, Ambrose Bierce was heavily influenced by two factors: his father's extensive library and his uncle, Lucius Verus Bierce. Bierce admired his uncle's oratory skills, public service, and social activism. He adopted the idealism that his uncle, a staunch abolitionist, demonstrated.
Bierce enlisted in the Union Army upon President Abraham Lincoln's first call for volunteer troops at the start of the Civil War in 1861. At the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in 1864, Bierce sustained a serious head injury, causing him to resign from military service in 1865.
Bierce's experience in the Civil War had jolted his idealism, which gave way to a cynical mindset. He was shocked by what he saw during the war. He despised incompetent generals, whom he blamed for illogically wasting the lives of young soldiers in the war. This cynicism is reflected in the magazine Fun for which he wrote in 1873. His stories incorporated the realities of war and often used shock to induce his readers to face unpleasant facts about life.
Bierce used the literary technique of flashback in his stories. When authors use flashbacks in their works, it can be difficult to keep track of the chronological order of the story's events. It may be helpful to note non-sequential events on a timeline. The timeline does not have to be ornate or detailed; it can be roughly noted on a piece of paper.
For information about what a flashback is, see these notes from ENG 9A!
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” revolves around the execution of a Confederate soldier named Peyton Farquhar. In this story, Bierce primarily uses the third-person limited point of view. In sections 1 and 3, the reader gains access to all of Peyton Farquhar's internal thoughts as the narrator tells the story and relays the sequence of events. Inside Farquhar's head, the reader is able to see Farquhar's escape just before he dies.
In section 2, the point of view shifts to show the thoughts and intentions of the soldier who comes to Farquhar's farm. Here, the reader finds out that the soldier is actually a federal scout who has set up Farquhar for capture. This insight is the only information the reader has that Farquhar does not. Revealing the soldier's identity to readers gives them more information than they would have received from Farquhar's point of view or internal thoughts alone.
Click here to read/review the story excerpt!
Hyphens are punctuation marks (-) that serve a variety of purposes, including modifying (changing) adjectives.
In a hyphenated compound modifier, two related adjectives are placed before a noun. The first adjective describes the second, and together they describe the noun. When two adjectives appear after a noun, they are not compounded or hyphenated.
Example: ". . . a pile of "skids" on the slope of the stone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf."
The term stone-paved is a compound modifier and therefore has a hyphen between the adjectives. The adjective "stone" modifies the adjective "paved" by describing the type of paving, and the two adjectives together describe the wharf.
However, if the text said, "the wharf was stone paved," a hyphen would not be necessary because the adjectives appear after the noun "wharf".
Note that the words "fragrant" and "town" are not hyphenated, even though they appear before the noun drunkard. Although fragrant and town modify drunkard, fragrant does not modify town.
Hyphens are used in fractions as well, such as the fraction two-thirds. They are also used to write the word form of the numbers 21 through 99.
Complex characters in literature add depth to a text. The personalities of complex characters are often multifaceted (have multiple sides to them) and are not easily defined in straightforward or simplistic terms. Authors often use complex characters to portray the variations in human nature. Complex characters may also be described as round characters, as they often develop over the course of a story.
Complex characters frequently face challenges such as conflicting motivations and moral dilemmas. These elements drive how a character develops, which, in turn, advances the plot of the story. Complex characters often have internal conflicts that cause them to question their own ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and morals. These nuances may add an unexpected twist to the story. When they confront these conflicts, complex characters commonly reveal the story’s themes or act as a medium through which authors can discuss larger societal issues.
The story begins with a brief description of Mrs. Mallard's health, specifically that she has a heart condition.
When Mrs. Mallard first hears this shocking news, she is stricken by grief and is highly emotional. She wishes to be alone. However, Chopin goes on to suggest that Mrs. Mallard is not a static character. Even in this moment, something is changing in her: "There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully." Her complexity is further revealed as she processes the news of her husband's death.
"The Story of an Hour" centers more on the development of a character and the character's internal conflict than on a sensational plot or extreme emotions. This focus on character development was a prominent aspect of realist literature. To develop characterization, realist authors turned to the findings of psychology, which had turned into a full-fledged science by the realist period. Round or complex characters supported realist authors' emphasis on facts and reality as opposed to imaginative constructions of plot and settings.
Born in 1837, William Dean Howells was a journalist, editor, and realist author. His ideas of realism were influenced by his association with the press. He considered strict adherence to truth to be the highest form of art, even if it meant the narration of commonplace and trivial events in life. His extreme emphasis on truth in the depiction of life and people in art made him an important proponent of realism in literature. As the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, he had a significant influence on the tastes of the reading public. His promotion of realism gave rise to the inclusion of local dialects in literary works, making them more authentic representations of life.
Tone is an author’s attitude or feeling toward the subject he or she is writing about. You can often identify a work's tone through its vocabulary and syntax.
Mood is the atmosphere a writer creates to elicit a feeling from the reader. An author often establishes a story’s mood through the words and actions of a character as well as through the setting.
Both mood and tone are used to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of the characters, their actions, and the themes that develop throughout a story.
For a refresher about tone, please see these notes from ENG 9A!
Much realist literature is written as social commentary. As fiction, this commentary is woven into the narrative for the purpose of swaying the audience to the author’s perspective. Therefore, identifying an author’s persuasive purpose is key to a complete literary analysis.
Recall that tone indicates authorial perspective and, therefore, is one element of a text that can help you determine an author’s social commentary. You should also look for persuasive arguments. In a piece of literature, persuasive arguments are usually delivered by characters or a non-omniscient narrator. Not all persuasive character dialogue reveals an author’s agenda. But if a character’s perspective aligns with the tone, that character’s arguments likely represent those of the author.
Also keep these questions in mind as you read:
What is the tone of this piece?
What evidence of realist thought and perspective is present in this story?
For a refresher about tone, please see these notes from ENG 9A!
In the story “Editha," Howells creates a lead character who is a willful, silly, vapid young woman with a greatly misplaced sense of self-importance. The author develops a sarcastic tone by describing Editha’s unexamined and unwavering belief in war as a just and noble means.
The plot of “Editha” is, in essence, a series of causal relationships. A causal relationship is the connection between an event or action—the cause—and the results of that cause—the effects. In other words, a plot often begins with an event that sets off a series of related events. In terms of causal relationships, Editha’s idealization of the war ultimately leads to George’s death. While George had many misgivings about going to war, Editha continued to argue in favor of the cause. If she hadn’t been so vehemently in favor of the war, the reader is left to wonder, would George have enlisted at all? Given his own misgivings, the story may have had a very different outcome without Editha’s influence.
When reading a story, audiences expect to be able to trust the narrator (the person telling the story) and the events that the narrator describes. In first-person narratives, the narrator's perspective is the only one that comes through in the text. Sometimes, though, narrators have an unreliable or untrustworthy perspective on the events in a story. This limitation creates an unreliable narrator, or a narrator whose story cannot be believed. In that case, readers must judge for themselves which parts of the narrative are true and which should be called into doubt.
The two main reasons that readers might doubt a narrator's credibility are a lack of sophistication and a lack of sanity.
The two main reasons that readers might doubt a narrator's credibility are a lack of sophistication and a lack of sanity.
In a story with an unsophisticated narrator, the first-person account often comes from a child's point of view. Because the events of the story are described from a childlike perspective, the reader must read critically to understand the more subtle implications lost on the naïve narrator.
Narrators who display a lack of sanity are also considered unreliable because readers cannot be sure which events actually take place and which occur only in the narrator's imagination.
Authors often leave clues within a text to alert readers to the unreliability of a narrator. For example, a narrator might mention how other people view him or her:
Priscilla has told me that I need to forget about the child I saw in the woods, but I know he is still there.
Why does the author mention Priscilla's opinion of the narrator’s fascination with the child in the woods? It helps alert the reader that other characters may view the narrator with suspicion. The effect of this seemingly small detail illuminates an outsider's opinion of the narrator and implies that readers should view the narrator with a critical eye.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman used her writing to contribute to social reform in the early 1900s. The great-niece of abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, Gilman married Charles Walter Stetson in 1884. She gave birth to a girl the next year and soon after faced one of the most defining times in her life. Afflicted with what many now believe was postpartum depression, Gilman was diagnosed with neurasthenia (a mental illness with symptoms such as tiredness and low mood) and treated with the rest cure. This controversial treatment method nearly drove her insane.
Upon writing "The Yellow Wallpaper," a story about a woman who is driven insane by her adherence to the rest cure, Gilman faced many questions and criticisms from the public. In response, she later wrote the essay, "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper."
An OPINES chart is a useful tool that can help you analyze a text. It allows you to take notes about your understanding of the various aspects of the text under specific headings. The OPINES chart should be filled in as you read to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the text.
Organization (How is the text organized? Why it is organized that way?)
Purpose (Why did the author write the text?)
Impression (What is your first impression of the text? For example, what genre does it belong to? What is the point of view? Where is the setting? What is the mood?)
New Words (What new vocabulary have you learned?)
Evaluate (Did the author achieve his or her purpose in writing the text? What is your opinion of the text?)
Synthesize (How can you relate what you have read to your own life?)
Not sure how Synthesizing works? Click here to read notes on it from ENG 9B!
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" explores the effects of the rest cure on a woman who is stuck living predominantly in one bedroom in a remote mansion in the countryside. Though the narrator seems sensible and lucid in the beginning, her fixation on the "repellent, almost revolting" wallpaper in the bedroom, along with a lack of stimulation of any kind, slowly drives her insane.
Works of satire are written in a humorous way to point out a flaw in society or a particular person. Satire has been used for hundreds of years.
One prominent example of satire is Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver’s Travels," written in England in 1726. This book appears to be a travel log, following the adventures of man, Lemuel Gulliver, on four incredible voyages. However, Swift’s writing is actually a commentary on human condition and behavior. While the story is fantasy, Swift uses the story to highlight problems he sees in real human behavior.
For a more thorough refresher on satire, see these notes from Unit 2!
One technique many humorists employ is hyperbole, a rhetorical device that exaggerates facts and details. Writers use hyperbole to emphasize a point or to add humor based on the absurdity or irrationality of the idea being exaggerated.
For example, “This is the worst chocolate cake in the history of all desserts” is a hyperbole that exaggerates how bad the cake is for comedic effect.
In the United States during the late 1800s, satirical writing fit the times. The realist period was a backlash against romanticism. It focused on pointing out flaws in both romanticism and society as a whole. For example, romantic texts often included extraordinary characters, while realist literature focused on the daily struggles of regular individuals. Romantic writers embraced stories with happy endings, but realist writers were more interested in depicting the real world, including difficult challenges and unhappy endings.
Some of the commentary from realist writers came in the form of satire. In fact, American humor blossomed during the realist period, as evidenced by writers such as Mark Twain and Charles Farrar Browne.
Samuel Clemens, known more commonly by his pen name, Mark Twain, was born in 1835 in Missouri. Two aspects of his early life shaped his writing: his father's death and his job as a steamboat pilot. When Twain was 12 years old, his father died, forcing his family into near destitution. Twain drew from this experience later, portraying a true-to-life look at the lives of the American poor in his stories. His family lived on the Mississippi River until Twain was 17. He grew up watching the steamboat pilots of the Mississippi and always dreamed of piloting a steamboat himself. At age 21, this dream became a reality when he began an apprenticeship to become a pilot. Twain's fascination with life along the Mississippi River shines through in many of his stories.
Twain's satirical wit made him one of the biggest celebrities in the world in the late 1800s. However, he also suffered many personal tragedies along the way that contributed to the gritty realism of his serious works. Over the years, he lost three of his children, his wife, and at times his own memory. He died at the age of 74 at his home in Connecticut.
After two rich old men hand Henry Adams, a poor American traveler in London, a million-pound bank note, Henry discovers something important. He does not have to actually spend any money to use the bank note. Rather, he just shows the money to the clothing store clerk, the waiter, and the hotel manager he encounters, and they give him credit, trusting that he has the money to fund whatever purchase he wants to make.
Henry uses this discovery to his advantage and lives like a king for the month he has the money. Twain is making a statement about the worship of money throughout all classes of British society. Everyone—from the landlord of the hotel to the aristocrats that Henry dines with—is in awe of his million-pound bank note and, as a result, treats him as an honored member of society. Henry, and therefore the reader, knows that these people would not look at him twice if he were his usual, poor self. He has the bank note, though, and according to Twain’s commentary, that makes him important in the eyes of the British.
end rhyme: is when the last syllables within a verse rhyme
slant rhyme: rhyming structures with words that share similar sounds but aren't exactly perfect rhymes. They can be words that have the same consonant sounds with different vowel sounds, or the same vowel sounds with different consonant sounds. Also called half rhyme, slant rhyme, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, and off rhyme. Note the slant rhyme in this excerpt from “Easter, 1916” by William Butler Yeats:
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
As another example, the words enough and tough, which are spelled similarly, have exact rhyme. However, the words enough and though, although spelled alike, have slant rhyme.
internal rhyme: rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse is internal rhyme:
In the grey grains of sand
The dark veins of dropping rain
Words that contain slant rhyme also usually contain assonance or consonance.
assonance: a literary device that uses the repetition of the same vowel sound within several closely grouped words. (hint: Vowels are the letters A,E,I,O,U and sometimes Y)
Example: The fish will not quit flapping its skinny fins.
consonance: a literary device in which consonant sounds are repeated, especially ending sounds, among several closely grouped words.
(hint: Consonants consist of non-vowel letters)
Example: Matt was not about to write a note to Dot.
Internal rhyme is less common in poetry than end rhyme. Internal rhyme occurs within the same line of a poem. The rhyme usually lies in the accented vowel and following consonant.
Read this line from T.S. Eliot’s poem “Gerontion”:
Here I am, an old man in a dry month
The words I and dry rhyme as do the words an and man, so the line contains internal rhyme.
Internal rhyme changes the pace of a poem by either speeding up or slowing down the reader’s eye. Internal rhyme is similar to slant rhyme in that it is a device poets use to emphasize certain words or ideas.
Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1836. She attended Henry Female College, also in Kentucky, where she studied many British romantic poets. Her early poems, written before the Civil War and influenced by Emily Dickinson, Robert Browning, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, are more sentimental than her later poems. After the war, Piatt's poetry contained more irony and political themes, which were reflective of realism.
Piatt, like most realists, wrote in reaction to the common themes of the romantic era. Her poem "In a Queen's Domain" exemplifies this rebellion. It begins in a traditional romantic way, with a strict meter and soft, pretty images:
Ah! my subject, the rose, I know,
Will give me her breath and her blush;
The rhyme scheme is uncomplicated, and the sentimental view of nature is obvious. In the second stanza, Piatt's speaker describes her affinity for animals and expresses her comfort in nature. However, halfway through the poem, the tone changes; nature is now exemplified by objects that will bring pain—a bee, a tiger, a snake.
But my subject, the bee, will sting;
And my subject, the thorn, will tear;
By changing the tone so drastically, Piatt is commenting on the romantics’ unrealistic idealization of nature. Realists acknowledge that the reality of nature is not ideal; in fact, natural things often bring pain. Even in the queen's supposedly ideal life, there are real, lurking dangers.
For a refresher on rhyme scheme, click on this link for notes from ENG 10A!
Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 into a strict household in Amherst, Massachusetts. While her parents strongly encouraged education and learning, Dickinson's father, a prominent politician and lawyer, censored much of the reading material brought into the house. When Dickinson was older, she enjoyed the poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and counted them among her chief influences.
Dickinson wrote 1,775 poems in the span of her life, most of which were published posthumously, or after her death. Her most productive year coincided with the onset of the US Civil War in 1861, an event that greatly affected Dickinson and is evident in her poetry. The death toll of the Civil War, as well as the deaths of several of her family members in the years that followed, heightened Dickinson’s interest in death. The theme of death became common in many of Dickinson's poems. Bereaved from deaths in her family and having to cope with iritis (an inflammation of the iris of the eye), Dickinson stayed secluded at her family's home in Amherst until her death in 1886.
The speaker creates a will beforehand and, while dying, observes a fly buzzing through the room. There is no sentimentality or idealism present despite the emotional subject of death. The poem simply describes the death of the speaker in a realistic, detached way.
While the lack of sentimentality and idealism are characteristics of realism, Dickinson also uses certain romantic, not realistic, elements in a few lines.
Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, New York, in 1819. In his early years, he worked as a teacher, a government employee, and a journalist. He also participated in the US Civil War by volunteering as a nurse.
Whitman, a master of free verse, is one of the most renowned American poets of the nineteenth century. Many consider Whitman the poet of American individualism and democracy. This legacy is secured in his life's work, the novel-length poetry collection Leaves of Grass. First published in 1855, Whitman rewrote, edited, and republished the work multiple times before his death in 1892.
Whitman often incorporated realist views in his poems. “Song of Myself,” for example, emphasizes the individual experiences of humans and the common humanity that all people share.
Walt Whitman is considered the first American poet to use the free-verse form, and in a way, he is the father of American modernist poetry. Although he employs parallelism and other structural elements, his poem "Song of Myself," which is part of his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, is written entirely in free verse. There are no instances of adherence to strict meter, rhyme, or definite form.
Whitman permeates the entirety of "Song of Myself" with parallelism. He begins with these lines:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
In these opening lines, Whitman introduces the themes of equality and the American identity. His use of parallelism connects the American individual with the idea of citizenry—that is, a person's role as a citizen of a nation. The parallelism brings the individual (“myself”) and citizenry (“you”) together in recognizing their common American identity.
Click here to read/review this poem!
For a refresher on parallelism, click here for notes from ENG 9A!
In 1859, the scientist Charles Darwin revealed his evolutionary theory of natural selection. He used logic and scientific evidence to describe how an organism's environment strongly affects its ability to thrive. These scientific advancements served as a basis for the depiction of environmental influences on humans in American literature. Naturalism grew out of these scientific ideas as well as out of the everyday realities explored in realism in the late 1800s and early 900s. Naturalist writers such as Eugene O'Neill and Jack London wrote about both nature and the daily lives of their characters. However, they strayed from the romantic admiration of nature and discussed it in a way that offered a drastically different perspective.
Romantics viewed and wrote about nature as a generally benevolent power. Naturalists, too, focused on nature in their writings, but one of the basic tenets of naturalism is that nature is not the nurturing, positive force that it is in romanticism. Rather, nature is indifferent to the suffering of humans. Also, unlike romanticism, naturalism suggests that nature, heredity, and chance are the elements that control the fate of humans. In the eyes of naturalists, humans are simply animals who respond to natural and environmental laws and forces, often without knowing why they are doing so.
Realist literature diverged from romantic ideas and attempted to provide a completely accurate depiction of life. While naturalist texts also portray life as it is, they are generally more brutal and pessimistic. Some texts even use natural creatures to represent threatening or negative aspects. Naturalists were not afraid to represent even the worst parts of life—including death—in all their often grisly authenticity.
The setting of a text grounds readers in a specific time and place. Setting provides historical and social context, and it also offers perspectives on characters, since people are often shaped by their environment. Furthermore, setting gives insight into the events that take place. Without a well-developed setting, the author risks boring readers or confusing them due to insufficient details or a weak framework.
Often, setting in naturalism illustrates the theme of nature's indifference to man; it also conveys a related idea that humans are inconsequential and insignificant within the grand scheme of the universe.
Pacing in literature is the speed or rate at which a text progresses. Like the setting, the pacing of a text contributes to the overall purpose and meaning of the work. Authors must find the right speed at which to convey their ideas. Authors can also manipulate pacing to create a particular mood, such as urgency or slow, mounting suspicion. Diction is one way to create mood through pacing.
The word pastoral comes from the Latin word pastor, which means shepherd. It should come as no surprise, then, that pastoral literature originally focused on the lives of shepherds. Pastoral themes and characteristics in literature were introduced in the third century BC, but they have changed over time. Originally, the Greeks wrote pastoral poems about shepherds who spent their days writing love songs or competing against friends in poetry contests. These poems implicitly condemned urban life and celebrated simple lives spent in natural settings. The first known instance of pastoralism is found in the Greek poet Theocritus's book Idylls, which contained short bucolic, or rustic, poems.
From these origins, the traits of pastoralism remained the same until the early twentieth century. Through the nineteenth century, pastoral literature told stories of charming country folk living idyllic country lives. The literature touted the benefits of natural, rustic settings. While it no longer focused on shepherds, it still implicitly condemned city life. In the early 1900s, pastoral literature centered on the differences between simple and complex cultures rather than just on natural versus urban settings.
Pastoralism is linked to naturalism for a couple of reasons; pastoralism and naturalism were both reactions to romanticism, and both of these literary movements took place in the late 1800s.
The two movements are sometimes mistakenly considered to be one movement. However, pastoralism and naturalism are fundamentally different. Pastoralism deals with nature and animals; it is more romantic in theme. Naturalism attempts to show life as it is. While the name naturalism implies that it deals with nature or the natural world, this movement actually refers to how the environment and other factors shape a person’s character.
In pastoral literature, the author attempts to depict a complex life in a simple manner, mostly by comparing it with the life of a shepherd. While pastoral literature often employs romantic techniques, naturalist literature applies scientific principles and reason, as well as objectivity, to a literary work.
Stephen Crane was born in 1871 into a family of writers. As a teenager, Crane briefly attended military school, where he cultivated his interest in the Civil War. But he became restless after less than two years of college and moved to the New York City Bowery slums where he became a journalist. Later, Crane worked as a reporter and a war correspondent.
Despite his interest in journalism, Stephen Crane is best known for his fiction and poetry. The Red Badge of Courage, Crane's 1895 novel about the Civil War, garnered widespread praise and established him as an effective naturalist author. Although Crane was only 23 years old when the book was published and had not actually fought in the war, veterans appreciated his ability to depict realistic combat scenes.
In contrast to his novel about the war, Crane’s short story "The Open Boat" is based on his personal experiences. In 1897, Crane was traveling to Cuba to report on a revolt there when the ship he was on sank. He managed to row to safety in a dinghy with three other passengers. This experience provided the premise for "The Open Boat."
In the short story “The Open Boat,” four men are cramped together in a small dinghy after the ship that they are traveling on has capsized. The men are at the mercy of the ocean. Stephen Crane accentuates this setting by mentioning that the men could be killed at any moment. The cook is forced to bail water out of the dinghy, while the oiler and the correspondent must row continuously to survive. Crane constantly mentions the ever-present chance of death the four men face by noting the never-ending waves, the water continuously filling the boat, and the flimsy paddles that could snap at any time. Stephen Crane’s purpose in drawing attention to the setting is to show the reader how people are helpless when at nature’s mercy. The saying “time and tide wait for no man” is true. People may try to conquer nature, but ultimately, all they do is survive nature. That is because nature is relentless and all-powerful. It doesn’t stop to judge the plight of a person and limit the force it exerts on that person.
Scientific advances such as Darwin’s theories about evolution greatly influenced the development of naturalism, as well as the literature of the early 1900s. Naturalist philosophy was consistent with the Darwinian belief that a human being is merely a higher order animal, and like other animals, is governed by heredity and environment. The influence of naturalism spread, having considerable impact on the cultural landscape of the time period. Naturalist writers fiercely believed in representing truth, no matter how ugly it appeared to civilized society. They often exposed the sordid reality of a rising industrialist culture.
Because naturalism is a specialized form of realism, many authors of this period are considered both naturalists and realists. While naturalism and realism attempt to show life as it actually is, naturalism is often more objective and detached than realism and includes the mindset that nature and the environment shape our personalities. Unlike realism, naturalism tends to explore the reasons behind a person’s behavior or actions.
Recognizing and then decoding the structure of an expository text is a critical factor in reading comprehension. In other words, understanding a text means understanding how it is organized.
1858 - Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection: Naturalist Charles Darwin studied the idea of evolution, which proposed that all species of plants and animals on Earth had evolved from a common ancestor over millions of years. Darwin theorized that change happened gradually through a process he called natural selection, also known as "survival of the fittest." Darwin believed that every individual has a unique combination of traits, many of which are inherited. Certain traits, said Darwin, help some members of a species survive. Those with less favorable traits are less likely to survive or reproduce. As those with favorable traits produce more young, the unfavorable traits in the species are eliminated. Slowly, over time, Darwin believed, changes through natural selection led to the development of new species that had adapted to different environments. Darwin's theories stirred up controversy in the field of biology and greatly impacted religious thought.
1886 - The Haymarket Riot: In 1886 labor organizers led a national campaign to reduce the workday to eight hours. As part of this effort, workers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago went on strike. When some workers broke the strike and went to work there, police were called in to protect them. On May 4 labor organizers held a rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square. At first, the demonstration was peaceful. But despite the presence of police personnel, someone in the crowd threw a dynamite bomb and caused havoc. Several policemen and civilians were killed in the resulting stampede. This violent riot, which became a symbol in the struggle for workers' rights, served as the backdrop for Frank Harris’s novel The Bomb.
1895 - Stephen Crane's The Red Badge Of Courage Published: Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage takes place during the US Civil War. It describes the internal journey, dilemmas, trials, and tribulations of a young army recruit who runs away from the battlefield. The protagonist is overcome with guilt and is ashamed of his cowardly act, and so he yearns for a wound—a red badge of courage—to compensate for his actions. Stephen Crane never went to war, yet his novel is known as one of the most accurate portrayals of the physical and mental effects of battle.
1900 - Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie Published: Theodore Dreiser is known as the foremost writer in the naturalist movement. His novel Sister Carrie is considered by many to be the greatest American urban novel. The book traces the lives of two characters from very different backgrounds and destinies, Carrie Meeber and George Hurstwood. Carrie is unhappy with her rural life and comes to Chicago to fulfill her ambitious dreams. She ends up becoming an actress. George, on the other hand, is wealthy and sophisticated; however, he ends up losing all his money and becomes a pauper. True to the naturalist theme of the novel, both characters’ lives are governed by random circumstances.
1903 - The Wright Brothers' First Flight: On December 17, 1903, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright realized a childhood dream: they flew. After years of trial and error, these pioneers in aviation made the world's first controlled flight of a motor-driven aircraft near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their plane—called the Flyer—flew 120 feet and stayed in the air for 12 seconds. That same day, they made three more flights, the longest of which was 852 feet in 59 seconds. The brothers continued their work, building and testing many more planes. By 1905, they had produced a plane that could stay airborne for 30 minutes and travel many miles. In 1908, the Wright Brothers won a contract with the US Army to produce the world's first military plane. This spirit of invention—a struggle against overwhelming odds—is a significant theme of the naturalist movement.
1903 - Jack London’s The Call of the Wild Published: One of the most widely read writers of his time, Jack London often explored environmental determinism, the idea that the physical world impacts and defines our behavior. That is the theme of one his greatest novels, The Call of the Wild, published in 1903. This story traces the struggles of a dog named Buck and tells how he tries to survive in the harsh weather of the Yukon. Buck must learn to be vicious to survive.
1906 - Upton Sinclair's The Jungle Published: Upton Sinclair was a journalist, novelist, and activist who became known as a muckraker, a writer whose goal was to expose social and political ills. He wrote The Jungle, his most famous novel, to shed light on the living conditions of migrants who worked in the meatpacking industry in Chicago. Like many other naturalist novels, the book exposes the dark and gritty realities of the lives of the working class. The publication of The Jungle led to the first US laws to regulate the food industry.
1909 - W.E.B. Du Bois Founds the NAACP: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American civil rights activist, historian, and writer. As a college student, he observed discrimination against African Americans and resolved to improve their conditions in society. He believed that all African Americans had common interests and should join together to fight prejudice. To that end, he helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to work toward political, social, educational, and economic equality for African Americans.
1911 - Ethan Frome Published: Many of Edith Wharton's novels focus on the upper-class society into which she was born. Through her writing, she often explored how the aristocratic society reacted to social change. However, her most enduring novel, Ethan Frome, dealt with the grim nature New England farm life. Published in 1911, the book is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, and portrays the lives of characters who live in abject poverty. A tragic love story, it deals with themes such as unrealized dreams, physical and inner transformation, and isolation from modern society.
1914 — 1918 - World War I: World War I, also known as the Great War, began in Europe in 1914 and became a global war that lasted four years. Sparked by an assassination, tensions grew between powerful European alliances and they were soon at war. World War I became a global war that eventually pulled in the United States and other countries around the world. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it took the lives of 9 million soldiers and 6 million civilians. Peace treaties at the end of the war led to major political changes. And from this period emerged the character-driven genre of postwar literature.
Jack London was born John Griffith Chaney in San Francisco in 1876. He became famous under his stepfather’s name. At age 14, London quit school to work in a factory and made enough money in a year to purchase a boat. He became an oyster pirate, stealing bounty from privately owned oyster beds. During his time of pilfering oysters, London earned the nickname "Prince of the Pirates." However, the prince was eventually caught by the California Fish Patrol. The loss of his oyster boat led London to work aboard a seal-hunting schooner in the Bering Sea. While working his stint on the schooner, London sold his first newspaper story, “Typhoon off the Coast of Japan.”
London worked a series of factory jobs in the United States and continued to write. He eventually joined the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon. Many of his most famous works, including The Call of the Wild and The Son of the Wolf, were inspired by his time in the Klondike region. In addition to his experiences there, social theories of the time influenced London’s writing.
Social theory is the study of society that focuses on the beginnings, development, organization, and function of different societies. London developed his perspective on social theory under the influence of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories published in his book On the Origin of Species. While the theory of evolution changed the landscape of biology, it also helped lay the foundation for American literary naturalism.
Jack London, who considered himself "an epitome of the Darwinian struggle for existence," was a naturalist who was particularly influenced by Darwin’s writings. The reading selection, London’s "The Human Drift," is a strong example of this perspective on social theory and human development.
Although quite complex, London’s argument in "The Human Drift" follows a well-organized structure. The main argument is stated outright in the first sentence. The entirety of "The Human Drift" supports, in some way, the idea that civilization developed in order for humans to achieve the ultimate goal of survival.
By tracking the premises used and the order in which they are presented, a chart can show arguments, premises, and conclusions, as well as how they depend on one another. This dependence creates the argument’s framework. Additionally, if the author has committed logical fallacies or left any gaps, the chart will help reveal them. Conversely, the chart will also reveal whether the argument is soundly reasoned and tightly knit.
Feeling Lost?
You can always schedule with a tutor for help (see our front page here)!
If you feel behind, you can also revisit our ENG 9A & ENG 9B, or ENG 10A & ENG 10B sites for a refresher on basics, steps, writing and vocabulary!
And don't forget that you can go back and look at notes from the other Units!