Define Literary Realism and apply the definition to Fools by Joan Term Paper

Define Literary Realism and apply the definition to Fools by Joan Silber. Refer to Huck Finn by Mark Twain as comparison - Term Paper Example Realism is applied by literary critics in two diverse ways: (1) to identify a movement in the writing of novels during the nineteenth century that included Honore de Balzac in France, George Eliot in England, and Willian L. Dean in America, and (2) to designate a recurrent mode, in various eras and literary forms, or representing human life and experience in literature† (Abrams 258). Thus it is evident that realism exposes the reality in human life and the words of Abrams confirms it when he says, â€Å"realism is said to represent life as it really is.† Another significant thing regarding realism is its â€Å"artistic or literary portrayal of life in a faithful, accurate manner, unclouded by false ideals, literary conventions, or misplaced aesthetic glorification and beautification of the world† (Wheeler). In realism, the writers do not leave space for fantasy or adventure as in the case of romantic fiction, but they depict life in a matter-of-fact or straightforward way, dissuading the wide possibilities of imaginative coloring. While reading through a realistic fiction, it said that the common readers are taken to a realistic social world in which the characters resemble to them and the actions narrated have close association with their life situations. This makes the readers infer the characters as simply existing and there is probability for their actions to take place. When analyzing Joan Silber’s ‘Fools’— collections of short stories, on the grounds of American literary realism, one can see t hat her stories fulfill most of the propositions of realism. The characters in ‘Fools’ are life-like, and therefore the readers do not consider them as separate entities smacked with some supernatural powers. The proposed study aims to establish the fact that Joan Silber’s ‘Fools’ is an example of inherent realism through the depictions of ordinary characters, settings, themes and accents. A comparison of ‘Fools’ with Mark Twain’s,