Without realism, where would we be in the world? More specifically, what would our literary canon be like if realism wasn't around? Or anything for that matter... song lyrics, literature, films...
Well, hello world. It's been a week or so and I am currently watching Anna Karenina downstairs while taking a break from my TEFL course on Canvas. So, for starters, I should probably mention that I consider myself a realist writer. What's realism you may ask? Simple:
Realism: the quality or fact of representing a person, thing, or situation accurately or in a way that is true to life.
When I say I'm a realist writer, I basically write based on the "true to life" aspect. Obviously, there are times when my writing is questioned *cough cough* like my thesis *cough* for being realistic, but as long as I know it's true, a question that might be ask is why realism actually matters. Well, for starters, it's the opposite of Romanticism (aka, happy endings). Remember how I said I'm watching Anna Karenina? Yeah, the original story itself is written by Russian author Leo Tolstoy. The novel is set in Imperial Russia and is basically what you can expect as soon as you learn about the main character, female mind you, meeting another man and that she is also married to someone. What happens?
ADULTERY
Of course adultery happens. And I'm even typing this as the act happens. Anyways.
When it comes to realism, it isn't always comforting to see how real life happens with how things end. In simpler terms, realism isn't a cheerful thing to talk about mainly because realism thrives to tell people the unhappy-real-life stuff that actually happens. Anna is a work of fiction, but there are things about her story that Tolstoy uses to portray real life. But there are also ways that Tolstoy shows realism in different ways that may not actually be considered realism.
**SPOILERS**
So, like any realistic story that is set back in the day, usually the main character has a downfall of some kind. For this story, the downfall happens to Anna (by admitting her affair and society basically hates her for it) and... well, suicide. Yeah, that's the realism part for you. But seeing the literary canon and realism, suicide is quite a common choice to make when life seems to be getting too hard for the character. But it also makes it easier when the story is written in third person. I'm now beginning to think of Stephen Crane's Maggie, A Girl of the Streets and the somewhat controversy of that ending. If you haven't read the story, it's not a bad one. But the Irish written-out accents and dialects get annoying after awhile, so luckily it isn't too long to get through. Basically, Maggie (the narrator's sister) is eventually a prostitute in the story and the ending is really ambiguous whether there is a suicide or a murder going on. I told you there were spoilers, but how can this be a spoiler if nobody actually knows what really happens to Maggie other than Crane? So many interpretations, so little time.
Realism really is an interesting thing to talk about whether it's reading it, interpreting it, or writing it.
Part of me was going to talk about the film Titanic here, but all of you should know how unrealistic that movie is with the exception of Titanic being a real historical event. The only realism stuff in that movie is the historical aspect. Sorry Jack, you still have to drown in the end. But hey, at least that part's realistic. But the whole sex in the ship cargo and the chance meeting of a 1st class rich girl and a dirt-poor 3rd class passenger meeting and falling in love?
Not gonna happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment