PART TWO: AMERICAN LITERATURE
Chapter 2 The Realistic Period

I. Choose the right answer:
1. Emily Dickinson was sometimes curious about the feeling of speech of death and in one of her poems she wrote about the______of death, the title of the poem is "I heard a Fly buzz when I died".
A. moment B. suffering C. happiness D. meaning
Answer: A (P518)
2. Theodore Dreiser belonged to the school of literary ______which emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances.
A. naturalism B. realism C. determinism D. humanism
Answer: A (P524)
3. More than five hundred poems that Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general _____about the relationship between man and nature is well expressed.
A. skepticism B. eulogy C. happiness D. denial
Answer: A (P518)
4. "This is my letter to the World" is a poem expressing Emily Dickinson’s _____about her communication with the outside world.
A. happinessB. angerC. Anxiety D. sorrow
Answer: C (P520)
5. Though secluded herself in her own house, Emily Dickinson was never really indifferent of the outside world, as could be seen in her poems such as "I like to see it lap the Miles", which describes a(n) ______, an embodiment of modern civilization.
A. snake B. animal C. the road D. train
Answer: D (P521)
6. After "The Adventure of Tom Sawyer", Twain gives a literary independence to Tom’s buddy Huck in a book called_____, and the book from which "all modern American literature comes".
A. Life on the Mississippi River B. The Gilded Age C. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn D. The Sun Also Rises
Answer: C (P479---480)
7. Winterbourne is used as a ______in Henry James’s "Daisy Miller".
A. Protagonist B. Narrator of the events C. A character of central consciousness D. Persona
Answer: C (P499)
8. Emily Dickinson’s verse is most aptly characterized as ___________.
A. exposing the evils of the society B. paving the way for the following generation of free verse poets
C. sharing the same poetic conventions as Walt Whitman D. exhibiting sensitiveness to the symbolic implications of experience, such as love, death, immortality and etc.
Answer: D (P518)
9. The author of "The Portrait of a Lady" is best at_______.
A. probing into the unsearched secret part of human life
B. a truthful delineation of the motives, the impulses, the principles that shape the lives of actual men and women.
C. a dramatizing the collisions between two very different cultural systems on an international scene
D. disclosing the social injustices and evils of a civilized society after the Civil War.
Answer: C (P496)
10. The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as _____________.
A. the Age of Realism B. the Age of Modernism C. the Age of Romanticism D. the Age of Colonicalism
Answer: A (P471)
11. Who exerts the simple most important influence on literary naturalism?
A. Emerson  B. Jack London C. Theodore Dreiser D. Darwin
Answer: D (P475)
12. One of the most familiar themes in American naturalism is the theme of human "______".
A. bestiality B. goodness  C. compassion D. greed
Answer: A (P476)
13. ______is considered by H.L. Mencken as "the true father of our national literature."
A. Hemingway B. Poe C. Irving D. Twain
Answer: D (P477)
14. Mark Twain wrote most of his literary works with a _______language.
A. grand B. pompous C. simple D. vernacular
Answer: D (P481)
15. Henry James’s fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with________.
A. international theme B. national theme C. European theme D. Regional theme
Answer: A (P497)
16. In the following writers, who is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century "Stream-of-consciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism______________.
A. Henry James B. Mark Twain C. Emily Dickenson D. Theodore Dreiser
Answer: A (P498)
17. In Henry James’ "Daisy Miller", the author tries to portray the young woman as an embodiment of ___________.
A. the corruption of the newly rich B. the free spirit of the New World C. the decline of aristocracy D. the force of convention
Answer: B (P499)
18. Which of the following is NOT a usual subject of poetic expression of Emily Dickinson’s?
A. War and peace B. Love and marriage C. Life and death D. Religion
Answer: A (P517)
19. The following titles are all related to the subject that escapes from the society and returns to nature except__________.
A. Dreiser’s Sister Carrie B. Copper’s Leather-Stocking Tales C. Thoreau’s Walden D. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Answer: A (P401 / P526)
20. The greatest work written by Theodore Dreiser is__________.
A. Sister Carrie B. An American Tragedy C. The Financier D. The Titan
Answer: B (P525)
21. Closely related to Emily Dickinson’s religious poetry are her poems concerning ___________.
A. Childhood B. Youth and happiness C. Loneliness D. Death and immortality
Answer: D (518)
22. With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the literary scene, _________became the major trend in American literature in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century.
A. sentimentalism B. romanticism C. realism D. naturalism
Answer: C (P474)
 

II. Read the quoted part and answer the questions:
1. "It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt tow things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to my self:
"All right, then, I’ll go to hell"----and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never though no more about reforming."
1) Who was the "I", which book was the passage taken from? And by whom? 2) Why did he think "it was awful thought"? Analyze it.
3) Analyze the characteristic of the hero.
Answer:
1) The character is Huckleberry Finn, the passage is taken from "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. (P489)
2) It is the climax of the Huck’s inner struggle on the Mississippi, when Huck is conflicting whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watson where Jim is, and he is polarizing/contradicting by the two opposing forces between his heart and his head, between his affection for Jim and the laws of the society against those who help slaves escape. Huck’s final decision -to follow his own good hearted moral impulse rather than conventional village morality. During his thinking Huck thinks of the consequence of helping Jim (the runaway slave), he might go to hell, "it was awful thought", with the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck grows. (P480)
3) Huck is an innocent and reluctant rebel, a typical American Boy with a "sound heart and deformed conscience". Through the eyes of Huck, the Pre-Civil War American society is fully exposed and we are deeply impressed by Mark Twain’s thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wildness and civilization. (P483)

2. "I should think it might be arranged," Winterbourne was thus emboldened to reply. "Couldn’t you get some one to stay----for the afternoon---with Randolph?"
Miss Miller looked at him a moment; and then with all serenity, "I wish you’d stay with him!" she said.
Questions:
1) Please identify the work and the author.2) Please analyze the character of Daisy Miller in literature.
参考答案:
1) It is taken from Henry James’s "Daisy Miller". (P513)
2) She is the American Girl in Europe, a celebrated type who embodies the spirit of the New World. However, innocence, the keynote of her character, turns out to be an admiring but a dangerous quality and her defiance of social taboos in the Old World finally brings her to a disaster in the clash between two different cultures. (P499-500)

3. "We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess---in the Ring---
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain----
We passed the Setting Sun---”
Questions:
1) Please identify the poem and the poet;2) What does "the School, the Fields of Gazing Grain and the Setting Sun" stands for?

Answers:
1) The lines are from "Because I could not stop fro Death", Emily Dickinson. (P523)
2) It stands for three stages of life: the School----youth;
the Fields of Gazing Grain----mature period;
the Setting Sun------end of life. (P523)

4. "The Eyes around---had wrung them dry---
And breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset----when the King
Be witnessed---in the Room----"
Questions:
1) What is the meaning of the first line? 2) What does "the King" refer to? 3) What idea does the poem from which this stanza is taken express?

Answers:
1) It means the relatives and friends had cried and cried so that there were no tears any more. (P521)
2) "The King" refers to the God of death. (P521) 3) The poem expresses that the author even imagined her own death, the loss of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the unknown. (P518)

III. Questions and answers:
1. What are the main ideas of Realists of America?
Answer:
The harsh life and disillusion from the dark memories of the Civil War made the nation dislike the romance, the new generation of writers came up with new inspirations:
1) They were interested in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the actuality of any aspect of life;
2) People’s attention was now directed the interesting features/things of everyday existence/things -something brutal, sordid/mean, class struggle etc.
3) The authors introduced common people such as: industrial workers and farmers, ambitious businessmen, vagrants, prostitutes/street girls, and unheroic soldiers in fiction;
4) American writers displayed native trends in portrayal of the landscape ad social surface realistically;
5) They formed perfect vernacular style in language;
6) Some authors explored and exploited/used the literary possibilities of the interior life/psychology, such as Henry James;
7) The representatives were: Mark Twain, Henry James, William Dean Howells;
In short, they set the example and pictured the future course for the modernism. (in the subject, themes, techniques, and styles of fiction)
(P472---474)

2. Take examples to analyze the style and theme of Mark Twain.
Answer:
Mark Twain is a great literary of America, H. L. Mencken considered him "the true father of our national literature".
1) Twain’s works like "Adventure of Huckleberry Finn" and "Life on the Mississippi" shaped the views of America and combined American folk humor and serious literature together;
2) "The adventures of Tom Sawyer" and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" proved to be the milestone in American literature, and they were the record of a vanishing way of life in the pre-Civil War Mississippi.
3) The books were noted for their unpretentious, colloquial, poetic, humorous, innocent and free style;
4) The language of Twain was simple, direct, lucid and faithful to truth -"vernacular";
5) Twain was famous for a local colorist, who presented social life through portraits of the local characters of his region -people living in the area, the landscape, the customs, dialects, costumes. Especially the theme of the Mississippi valley and the West;
6) The work of Twain were always confined to a particular region, historical moment, strong accent, intensified humor to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism. (P477-481)

3. Give a comment on the experience of Carrie.
参考答案：
1) Penniless and "full of the illusions of ignorance and youth", Sister Carrie leaves her rural home to seek work in Chicago, she grows from an innocent, pure country girl to be a girl mature in intellect and emotion, and she becomes a star of musical comedies. But in spite of her success in material, she is not happy but lonely and dissatisfied.
2) Sister Carrie best embodies Dreiser’s naturalistic belief that while men are controlled and conditioned by heredity, instinct and chance, a few extraordinary and unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate wordlessly and instead strive, unsuccessfully, to find meaning and purpose for their existence. (P527-528)

4. The characteristic and theme analyses of Henry James.
Answer:
1) The Freudian approach is famous in his novels and his literary essays.
2) James took great interest in international themes -the clashed between two different cultures and the emotional and moral problems of Americans in Europe, or Europeans in America in his first period.
3) "The Portrait of A Lay" is generally considered to be his masterpiece.
4) James experimented with different themes and forms in his middle period.
5) In his last an major period, James returned to his "international-theme."
6) The typical pattern of the conflict between the two cultures would be that of a young American man or an American girl (Daisy Miller) who goes to Europe and affronts/met with his or her destiny. The unsophisticated boy or girl would be beguiled, betrayed, cruelly wronged at the hands of those who pretend to stand for the highest possible civilization.
7) He focuses on psychological approach. His fictional world is concerned more with the inner life of human beings -this emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousness proves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing.
8) He is regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century "stream-of-consciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism.
9) James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. (P495-498)

5. The period from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to the Age of Realism (The Gilded Age) in the literary history of the United States, why did it happen and what characters did it have?
Answer:
1) The American society after the Civil War provided rich soil for the rise and development of Realism, and Civil War affected the social and the value system of the country, America had transformed into an industrialized and commercialised society.
2) The war stimulated the technological development;
3) The booming economy and industry stepped up urbanization;
4) The phenomenon of polarization is serious;
5) People became doubtful about the human nature and the benevolence/grace of God;
6) Gone was the frontier, the spirit of the frontiersman/pioneer, the spirit of freedom and the American dream. (P471---472)

6. Please analyze the characteristics of Emily Dickinson’s poems.
Answer:
1) Dickinson’s poems are usually based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys. But within her little lyrics Dickinson addresses those issues that concern the whole human beings, which include religion, death, immortality, love, and nature. (theme)
2) Her masterpiece -----"I heard a Fly buzz---when I died", she looked at death from the point of view of both the living and the dying. She even imagined her own death, the loss of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the unknown.
3) The style of Dickinson:
A: A particular stress pattern: dash“-------”
B: Capital letters as a means of emphasis;
C: Language: brief, direct, and plain;
D: Poem: short, always on single image or symbol (e.g. "I like to see it lap the miles"---------describe a train in the personification of the literary device)
E: Her poems tend to be personal and meditative (e.g. “Because I could not stop for Death”).
(P517---519)

7. In the representatives of "Local colorism", the writers shared some things in common and also had some differences, please analyze them.
Answer:
1) 3 prominent writers differed in the understanding of the "truth": Mark Twain and Howells paid attention to the life of the Americans; Henry James emphasized the "inner world";
2) Howells focused on the rising middle class, while Twine dealt with the region and the people at the forefront;
3) The other local colorists concerned with the life of the small, well-defined region or province, the setting is always the isolated small town;
4) They were nostalgic historians, recording the vanishing way of life, and the fading present. (P474---475)
 

8. Analyze the theory of Theodore Dreiser’naturalism with example.
Answer:
1) His naturalism emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances. At bottom, life was shown to be ironic, even tragic.
2) The characters in his books are often subject to the control of the natural forces -especially those of environment and heredity. For example, the hero Hurstwood’s tragic death showed the theory.
3) The effect of Darwinist idea of "survival of the fittest" was shattering. It is not surprising to find in Dreiser’s fiction a world of jungle, where "kill or to be killed" was the law.
4) He criticizes materialistic to the core, living in such a society with such a value system, the human individual is obsessed with a never-ending, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his/her desires. One of the desires is for money which was a motivating purpose of life in the United States in the late 19th century. For example in his masterpiece "Sister Carrie" he traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber, which indicates the critical attitude of the author.
5) Sexual beauty symbolizes the acquisition of some social status of great magnitude. (P525---527)

9. Darwin’s evolutionary theory gave rise to American naturalism, what are their characteristics?
Answer:
The American naturalists accepted the more negative implication of Darwin’s theory, and used it to explain the behaviours in literary works.
1) They regarded man as the complex combinations of inherited attributes/elements, their habits conditioned/controlled by social and economic forces;