from "Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865" and "The Gettysburg Address" - Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's speeches, The Second Inaugural from March 4, 1865 and The Gettysburg Address are some of the most famous speeches of all time. They would fall underneath of the writing genre of realism. According to Werlock, "Realism is the attempt to depict life as it actually exists, not as the author wants it to be in the present or the future, or imagines it was in the past. A realist carefully chooses details that illustrate this vision, unlike the naturalist who tries to include all possible details" (Werlock). This is just what Lincoln does within his speeches. This Illinois man does not cut out anything about the nation, he tells it as it is. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any other nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure....that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom" (Lincoln, "The Gettysburg" 402). He does kind of romanticize the whole idea of rebuilding the world after the war, but he mainly does not. He talks of how this war has split the country in two. He talks of the people who have risked and many times given their lives for the sake of the war, and if this war does not come to anything, it would be a waste of their lives. He is not leaving anything out. He tells us of how the nation is at this point in time.

These speeches relate directly to the time period because they are legitimate speeches from the time around the Civil War, and in the Civil War. So these speeches are very relevant to the time period. Lincoln is kind of telling us the state the nation is in and what we need to do to make it the nation it is capable to be. There is a little bit of religion in these speeches. In the "from Second Inaugural Address, March 4th, 1865," there are a couple of mentions of God, "The Almighty has his own purposes...in the providence of God....having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove and that He gives us both North and South.....Yet, if God wills that it continue....with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right..." (Lincoln, "from Second" 339). This speech is kind of centered upon what God wants the country to do at this time. A lot of it is focused upon this. In "The Gettysburg Address," there is not mention of God; at least in this excerpt there is not. This is a big part of the government as well because it is the President of a government and it states what the country he is governing should do. The American Dream in these speeches would be to have the Civil War ended and having the nation be one Union again; brothers not fighting against brothers.

The hero of "The Gettysburg Address" would be the soldiers in the war; "The brave men, living and dead" (Lincoln, "The Gettysburg" 402). These soldiers are common people that are fighting for what is they believe is right. These are commonly the heroes of realism as well.



Kasraie, Mary Rose. "local color." In Barney, Brett, and Lisa Paddock, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816–1895, vol. 2, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Feb 8, 2011.


Lincoln, Abraham. "Lincoln, Abraham."The Gettysburg Address." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 402. Print.


Lincoln, Abraham."from Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 339. Print.


Werlock, Abby H. P. "realism." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Feb 8, 2011.

from "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" - Frederick Douglass

This short excerpt from Frederick Douglass's "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" is very much so a piece of realism. According to Abby Werlock, realism "is the attempt to depict life as it actually exists, not as the author wants it to be in the present or the future, or imagines it was in the past. A realist carefully chooses details that illustrate this vision, unlike the naturalist who tries to include all possible details" (Werlock) In this short passage, Douglass describes his torture and his bondage of being an African American at this time and tells of how he is not free. He wishes he was free, but he is unfortunately not free and he ridicules the white people for this day of "freedom" for the country. He does not leave out the details of how he feels for them, otherwise known as the white people. It is brutal; "To him (an African American slave), your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.... a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages" (Douglass 337). This passage is just one of hate towards the people who are keeping him in captivity. I believe this work would also fall under the subset of regionalism. It is clearly in the southern states, since they were the only ones to have slavery. "The primary focus of interest lies in the particular characteristics of a region and people at a particular time" (Kasraie). This is in the south at the time of slavery, in 1852, so it fits this genre of realism. This literary work reflects the anger of not just African American slaves at this time, but also the abolitionists and the freedmen. They were enrages by this "freedom" that black people had at this time and they had their emotions to deal with. This is what we see in Douglass's "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." This story reflects the feelings of thousands of people just like Douglass at this time period.

There really are no arguments with religion as this is mostly a political issue. The government had no right to keep these people in bondage underneath them, but they did anyway. Douglass recognized this and he was infuriated by his position in the world just because of the color of his skin. This is what we see in this story is Douglass's anger towards the United States' government and the whole idea of slavery in the south. Nature is not included much in this story unless you want to count the nature of slavery angering Douglass to write this story. He believes that he should be an equal and share in the freedom that whites are given, but the white people are celebrating through lies and terrible crimes. He feels very angered by this. The American Dream in this short story by Douglass would be the idea of freedom for slaves, which would eventually come to the slaves, but after many more years of separation. There would be no hero in this story.


Douglass, Frederick."from The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 337. Print.


Kasraie, Mary Rose. "local color." In Barney, Brett, and Lisa Paddock, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816–1895, vol. 2, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Feb 7, 2011.


Werlock, Abby H. P. "realism." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Feb 7, 2011.

Regionalism

"Writers who write about real or made-up locales make use of the history or ideas associated with particular regions" (Anderson). We see regionalism a lot in stories, novels, and just writing inn general. Recently, in a book I read for AP UNited States History, it involved a lot of regionalism. It is called Centennial and it is written by James Michener. Centennial is all about this area of Colorado. Kasraie says it best with what classifies regionalism with, "the most common vehicle for local-color writing is the sketch or short story, with, generally speaking, the following characteristics: 1) characters are stereotypical or picturesque, staunch traditionalists, who speak the regional dialect and whose actions and personalities are indicative of the region; 2) the setting—typically rural, often inaccessible, and isolated from encroaching urbanization—plays an essential role in the story and may even be a character itself (stories usually orbit around the village or a similarly circumscribed locale and focus on the traditional practices of the community); 3) plotlines are sparse, especially in local-color stories by women writers; 4) often there is a framing device in which a narrator recounts a yarn or story about another region; 5) the narrator sometimes acts as the audience for the story; and/or 6) there is a narrator who is an educated, nonnative observer whose comments are meant to enlighten the urban audience" (Kasraie). "local color designates a particular kind of writing that flourished from 1865 to 1895, in which the primary focus of interest lies in the particular characteristics of a region and people at a particular time" (Kasraie). Centennial was a book that talks about this small area of Colorado and tells of the people who lived there and learned how to use the land. It is a farming community with maybe two hundred people in it. Then there are stories of the Zendt family who come from Pennsylvania and tells of their life their and their travels to Colorado. Michener was a very effective narrator who knew what he was talking about.



Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds."regionalism." Encyclopedia of American Literature: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, vol. 3, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Jan 31, 2011.


Kasraie, Mary Rose. "local color." In Barney, Brett, and Lisa Paddock, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816–1895, vol. 2, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Jan 31, 2011.