Naturalism & Realism

For my American Lit final, we had to define Naturalism and Realism, using quotes from authors:

Naturalism:

"For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you"- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that nature recoil upon itself. "-Jack London

“I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets.”-Hamlin Garland

"Vinnie [Dickinson's sister] rocks her Garden and moans that God won't help her. I suppose he is too busy getting angry with the Wicked every day"- Emily Dickinson

“The creator who could put a cancer in a believer's stomach is above being interfered with by prayers”- Bret Harte

"Her seductive voice, together with his great love for her, had enthralled his sense, had deprived him of every impulse but the longing to hold her and keep her"- Kate Chopin, The Awakening

"Yet, man, in his simplicity and complacency and inability to cipher, thinks nature regards him as the important member of the family-- in fact, her favorite. Surely, it must occur to even his dull head, sometimes, that she has a curious way of showing it" - Mark Twain, Following the Equator

"I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and infinite complexity of the co-adaptations between all organic things. . ."- Charles Darwin

"When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. " — Stephen Crane

Realism
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away"- Philip K. Dick

"In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, 'Is it good, friend?'
'It is bitter -- bitter,' he answered,
'But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.'"
— Stephen Crane

"If we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time"- Edith Wharton

" Impossibilities are merely things which we have not yet learned. "-Charles W. Chesnutt

"And woman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body. "-Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“To be hanged and drown that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair"-Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

"You go through life like a perambulating prayer-wheel, a friend of nobody but the righteous, and the righteous are those who agree with you as to what is right"- Jack London, The House of Pride

"A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain"- Mark Twain

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails"- William Arthur Ward

"Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger. Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed"- Henry James

Art Final Project

For my final project, I wanted make a collage to be representation of an actual pier named Creek Street in Ketchikan, Alaska, because I loved the architecture and how all the buildings were on docks on the water. I thought the pictures of it were peaceful and reminded me of places I have been in the Caribbean. I thought the houses would be a good focal point and felt the picture fit into my theme of art and nature. I wanted to show how something humans built can be just as beautiful as the nature that surrounds it.

I wanted to incorporate the way Gary Vlasic at the Phillips Gallery made a form out of different pieces of magazines and/or paint. I also liked the way Fred Tomaselli incorporated different images into his collage, Head, as seen in the textbook, and how his use of black brightened the other colors. When I did the rough draft with the houses in a primary color scheme, I felt there was something missing, with no trees and/or water. I started looking at all the magazines around my house and found pictures of trees and skies that fit into my color scheme

For my final draft, I made a mixed media collage on a foam white board using a color scheme of red, yellow orange, green, and blue violet. I made two houses, sky, trees, and the dock boards out of mod podging pictures from art magazines, newspapers, and other magazines I had around my house. I also painted the windows yellow orange and the doorways blue violet, and painted the dock and the roofs black. . I also hid a few forms of human silhouettes that fit into my color scheme. I also wanted the dock board to be reflective of the houses.

The House of Pride

In Jack London's story The House of Pride, the main character and "negative organism" Percival Ford annoyed me throughout the story. It seems like all he was full of hatred towards anybody who was different than him and all he did was complain about his surroundings and comment on how better he was than everybody else: "He was different from them--from all of them." You would think someone living in Hawaii would lighten up.

There is he is "sitting under the algaroba trees between the lanai and the beach" in Hawaii and all he can do is judge the female dancers for their "bare shoulders and arms" instead of taking in the view of the land and sea. Percival reflects on how the women he has dated are different than the "frightening" army women: "He ruled those women by virtue of his superior mentality, his great wealth, and the high place he occupied in the commercial baronage of Hawaii." He also doesn't get along with the army men who he claims " were like their women!"

Dr. Kennedy even sees what kind of person Percival is and describes him perfectly: "You go through life like a perambulating prayer-wheel, a friend of nobody but the righteous, and the righteous are those who agree with you as to what is right." Percival is stunned to learn from Dr. Kennedy, that Joe Garland, who Percival believes "is bad and immoral," is his half-brother.

Percival continues on his path of negativity and feels "shame" for his father's actions: "He was appalled by what was in his blood." Instead of embracing his half-brother, he tells Joe " "I want you to go and never come back" and offers him " Five hundred down and two hundred a month as long as you stay away" and only when Joe takes the offer does Percival smile.

Salt Lake Field Trip

Song of the Flesh Series 17 by Gary Vlasic at the Phillips Gallery

Form: This is a mixed media collage. The colors are red, blue, white, and green. The artist has cut out pictures of jewelry, a duck's head, bugs, and different colors to make twigs. Diagonally he has put the quote" We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds."

Meaning: The theme is art and nature, with a representation of woodland creatures such as ducks and bugs, mixed with sticks. I believe with adding the jewelry, he wanted to say that the woodland creatures deserve recognition of beauty as much as jewelry does.

Success: this was my favorite piece of his art, because it was unique. it wasn't formed to make a human being like the others. I liked it because of the words he added as well.

Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem by Sam Wilson at the Cathedral of the Madelaine

Form: This painting shows Jesus carrying his cross diagonally while images of women either cry or pray for him, while images of flowers, decorate the corners. The color scheme is southwestern using black, purple, red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.

Meaning: The theme is sacred realm, with religious iconography of the moments before Jesus' crucifixion and his followers' reactions to what is happening. I think the message is to remind churchgoers about the sacrifices Jesus made in order to save the world. I think the corner flowers are there to remind us of the resurrection and Easter.

Success: I am a religious person and I think this painting has a very powerful message of faith. I think it is very visually moving with its theme and images. I think the big wooden frame adds a lot to the painting as well.

A +B (It is too late, sit down) by Ike Bushman at SLC Library

Form: It is a triptych featuring digital print and acrylic on masonite. The color scheme is a monochromatic green, with brown and beige. The focal point are the brown sticks and green circles. it is a non-representational work of art. it looks like he has also carved lines in the background or painted over lines he didn't like.

Meaning: The theme is looking outward and taking the time to view art, hence the title. It could also be art and nature, if someone interprets it as brown sticks and green leaves.

Success: This piece definitely caught my eye, because of its earth tone colors and its calming effect. he does center his objects in the middle of the piece, but I don't think it would have been as effective to balance them elsewhere on the canvas.

Lighthouses

Roman Fever

Edith Wharton in her story Roman Fever, describes a conversation between two women, Mrs. Grace Ansley and Mrs. Alida Slade, who used to be friends, and "run across each other in Rome, at the same hotel." "Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley had lived opposite each other—actually as well as figuratively—for years," both marrying and having children of their own, losing touch with their friendship and growing older apart.

After reconnecting, "these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope." Their reconnection is awkward, like being at a high school reunion, where you haven't seen each other for a while, and know nothing about what the person has been doing since then. It's hard to visualize your friends having a life without you, when this person used to be a close confidant and you still picture them as their unchanged childhood selves.

"For a long time they continued to sit side by side without speaking" and "Mrs. Ansley was slightly embarrassed by what seemed, after so many years, a new stage in their intimacy, and one with which she did not yet know how to deal." If someone is not around their friends for a while, you lose common interests and the ability to relate. It does make it hard to converse and relate to someone about the present, which is why people are so nostalgic.

When they talk to each other they talk about "bridge games" and their daughter's lives, and their past together, revealing their friendship ended over fighting over Delphin Slade. Mrs. Ansley's revelation about her daughter Barbara proves that sometimes the past isn't worth being brought up, in response to Mrs. Slade saying " I had everything; I had him for twenty-five years. And you had nothing but that one letter that he didn't write." Sometimes it is best to just let the past die.

SLC Art Field Trip

Song of the Flesh Series 17 by Gary Vlasic at the Phillips Gallery
Form: This is a mixed media collage. The colors are red, blue, white, and green. The artist has cut out pictures of jewelry, a duck's head, bugs, and different colors to make twigs. Diagonally he has put the quote" We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds."
Meaning: The theme is art and nature, with a representation of woodland creatures such as ducks and bugs, mixed with sticks. I believe with adding the jewelry, he wanted to say that the woodland creatures deserve recognition of beauty as much as jewelry does.
Success: this was my favorite piece of his art, because it was unique. it wasn't formed to make a human being like the others. I liked it because of the words he added as well.

Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem by Sam Wilson at the Cathedral of the Madelaine
Form: This painting shows Jesus carrying his cross diagonally while images of women either cry or pray for him, while images of flowers, decorate the corners. The color scheme is southwestern using black, purple, red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.
Meaning: The theme is sacred realm, with religious iconography of the moments before Jesus' crucifixion and his followers' reactions to what is happening. I think the message is to remind churchgoers about the sacrifices Jesus made in order to save the world. I think the corner flowers are there to remind us of the resurrection and Easter.
Success: I am a religious person and I think this painting has a very powerful message of faith. I think it is very visually moving with its theme and images. I think the big wooden frame adds a lot to the painting as well.

A +B (It is too late, sit down) by Ike Bushman at SLC Library
Form: It is a triptych featuring digital print and acrylic on masonite. The color scheme is a monochromatic green, with brown and beige. The focal point are the brown sticks and green circles. it is a non-representational work of art. it looks like he has also carved lines in the background or painted over lines he didn't like.
Meaning: The theme is looking outward and taking the time to view art, hence the title. It could also be art and nature, if someone interprets it as brown sticks and green leaves.
Success: This piece definitely caught my eye, because of its earth tone colors and its calming effect. he does center his objects in the middle of the piece, but I don't think it would have been as effective to balance them elsewhere on the canvas.

Under the Lion's Paw

Hamlin Garland describes life in a rural farming town in his story Under the Lion's Paw, from everything from "the ploughmen on their prairie farms" to "the wild geese, honking wildly, as they sprawled sidewise down the wind." The "day-to-day lives of the farmers- and especially of their wives- who lived along this metaphorical 'long and wearyful' byway," Garland writes about, are inspiring, because these are people who are everyday heroes.

His main character, Stephen Council, is a ploughman who helps the Haskins, who he describes as "wayfarers an' folks who need sumpthin' t' eat an' a place t' snoot." Garland describes Mrs. Council as "a large, jolly, rather coarse-looking woman" who nurtures the strangers by telling them, "Come right in, you little rabbits." For the kindness of the Councils, Haskins compliments them to his wife: "There are people in this world who are good enough t' be angels.

Mr. Council describes his philosophy on helping the needy, "When I see a man down, an' things all on top of 'm, I jest like t' kick 'em off an' help 'm up. That's the kind of religion I got, an' it's about the only kind." When Haskins offers to pay him back for helping him find a farm to rent, Council responds, "Don't want any pay. My religion ain't run on such business principles."

It's too bad that there are villains in this world like Jim Butler, who Haskins rented the farm from, and wanted more money for the land after Haskins spent three years working on it and growing the crops. Garland believed "the meagerness of these silently heroic lives could be made more fruitful and loving, if the economic system was more humane." If more people were like the Councils than the Jim Butlers, it would be a better world.

A New England Nun

Despite naming her story A New England Nun (which "treats the pervasive theme of psychic oppression and rebellion of women"), the nun in the title is a reference to a woman who waits for something like love or God, in Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's opinion, with varied results. Her main character Louisa Ellis who is "prayerfully numbering her days, like an uncloistered nun" after waiting for 14 years for her betrothed to return to her, only to overhear him declare his love for someone else, and then turns him away on their wedding day, so he can be with the woman he really loves. She has waited for nothing, when she could have been out living life and finding someone to love her back.

Freeman herself went to seminary but "left after a year in which she resisted the school's pressure on all students to offer public testimony as to their Christian commitment." She reminds me of Emily Dickinson, rebelling against organized religion and writing about it: "The constraints of religious belief, and the effects of these constraints on character formation and behavior, is one of her chief subjects."

Although she does write about religion, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman is "best known for her depiction of New England Village Life." She paints the sounds and night atmosphere of the New England countryside in A New England Nun : "The twilight had deepened; the chorus of the frogs floated in at the open window wonderfully loud and shrill, and once in a while a long sharp drone from a tree-toad pierced it." In her story The Revolt of the Mother, Freeman describes a old couple living in the countryside: "She looked as immovable to him as one of the rocks in his pasture land, bound to the earth with generations of blackberry vines." Her description is amazing and her usage of metaphors and symbols are entwined with good storytelling.

25 Images

For an assignment for my art class, we were asked to gather 25 images of art in five different mediums that we liked. here are some of the ones I liked:

The Awakening

Kate Chopin once said: "There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water" (Murdock and Hahn), but Kate Chopin and her writing have been proven to be the exception to the rule. Kate Chopin is a wonderful writer whose writing is very fast-paced, detail oriented and visually descriptive, where as her subjects are controversial and leaves a lasting impression on her readers, because of the tidbits of her own life she leaves imprinted in Edna in the pages of The Awakening.

The Awakening is Chopin's "best-known work" and "focuses on the lives of sensitive, intelligent women" ("Kate"). The novel "depicts a woman's search for spiritual and sexual freedom in the repressive society of late-nineteenth-century America" ("Chopin"). Although her work is about women's issues such as feminism and naturalism, "Kate was neither a feminist nor a suffragist, she said so. She was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted women's ability to be strong" (Fox-Genovese).

Chopin writes about Edna's "marriage to Leonce Pontellier" being "purely an accident, in this respect resembling many other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate." (21). She also writes about Edna's husband Leonce "looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage" (3), which is typical of the time period Edna and Kate lived in. Like Edna, Chopin was married to a wealthy man who was known in society, which was reflective in her writing: "In 1870 she married a wealthy Creole cotton magnate, Oscar Chopin, and moved with him to New Orleans. For the next decade, Chopin pursued the demanding social and domestic schedule of a wealthy New Orleans wife, the recollection of which would serve as material for The Awakening" ("Chopin").

Chopin writes about sexuality when describing a moment between Edna and Robert, the object of her affection: "Her seductive voice, together with his great love for her, had enthralled his sense, had deprived him of every impulse but the longing to hold her and keep her" (142). In Kate Chopin's writing, her "frank treatment of female sexuality broke new ground at a time when married women held no legal rights over their bodies and when few other female or feminist writers hazarded openly to explore women's sexual desire" (Heilmann 88).

Chopin wrote about Edna Pontellier's struggles with identifying herself and finding her place in society: "One of these days, I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think--try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must think about it" (91). It's hard for Edna to known herself as anything but a mother and wife, especially when her husband, Mr. Pontellier "reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?" (26-27). "While reading The Awakening remember that it is a kunstleroman, 'a tale of a young woman who struggles to realize herself - and her artistic ability' and remember that Chopin, as well as Edna, was on a quest for artistic acceptance" (Wyatt).

Kate Chopin's own social life is reflected into the social settings she writes about Edna Pontellier enduring in The Awakening: "She used to have these Thursday afternoon soirées and all the poets and the writers and the editors and people who happened to be in town were there. She sat there like the Grand Dame she was and entertained them" (Chopin, David). Chopin also wrote about the city of New Orleans, where grew up and where "Young Madame Chopin took long solitary walks around the city, as does Edna in The Awakening" (Toth 16).

While Chopin finds her place in the world by writing, her character Edna finds herself by swimming in the ocean: "How strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! how delicious! She felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known" (Chopin 115). "Edna's midnight swim is much more than a victory of physical condition. It establishes her sense of self-ownership, physical, mental and spiritual, which in turn triggers two fundamental insights that determine her progression from a disengaged wife to an autonomous subject" (Heilmann 87).

Chopin wrote about suicide in The Awakening, where her main character Edna drowns herself in the conclusion of the novel: "Chopin details the suicide act as a sensuous act of skin against air and water" (Joslin 85). Although Kate Chopin never tried to commit suicide, she did have many deaths in her family and "these unhappy incidents combined to create a strong skepticism of religion" (Wyatt).

Many biographers agree Kate Chopin was ahead of her time: " She was very important as one of the earliest examples of modernism in the United States or, if you wish, the cutting edge of modernism in American literature" (Fox-Genovese). She was not well accepted in her time period: "The content and message of The Awakening caused an uproar and Chopin was denied admission into the St. Louis Fine Art Club based on its publication. She was terribly hurt by the reaction to the book and in the remaining five years of her life she wrote only a few short stories, and only a small number of those were published. Like Edna Pontellier, she paid the price for defying societal rules." (Wyatt).

Kate Chopin wrote about many subjects dealing with women such as marriage, sexuality, identity, society, death, which she dealt with in her own life, and is reflective in her own work and imprinted into the story of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening. By writing Edna's story, Chopin leaves the readers with a lasting impression after they have read her work and reflection of who she was as a human being.

Works Cited
Chopin, David. "Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening." PBS Interview. June 23, 1999.

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Gen ED. Nina Baym. 7th ed. Vol C. New York: W.W. Norton. 2007. 535-625

"Chopin, Kate - Introduction." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec Project Editor. Vol. 127. Seattle: Gale Cengage, 2003. eNotes.com. 2006. 4 Apr, 2009

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. "Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening." Interview. PBS. June 23 1999.

Heilmann, Ann. "The Awakening and New Woman Fiction." The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin. Ed. Janet Beer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2008. 87-105.

Joslin, Katherine. "Kate Chopin in Fashion in a Darwinian World." The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin. Ed. Janet Beer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2008. 73-87.

"Kate Chopin Biography." The Kate Chopin International Society.

Ker, Christine. "Ahead of Her Time: An Overview of the Life and Works of Kate Chopin." Empire Zine.

Murdock, Wendy, and Harley Hahn. "Quotable Women- An Archive of Memorable Quotes By Women."

Toth, Emily. The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin. Ed. Janet Beer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2008. 13-27.

Wyatt, Neal. "Biography of Kate Chopin." 1995

Attractions in Wyoming

Jenny Lake

The Virginian Lodge in Jackson Hole

Grand Teton National Park

Colter Bay Lodge

Bar J Ranglers

Jackson Hole Town Square

Jackson Hole Alpine Slide

Jackson Hole Playhouse

Old Faithful

Dirty Jacks Playhouse in Jackson Hole