REALISM AND EXISTENTIALISM

REALISM AND EXISTENTIALISM

  -  IT'S RELEVANCE OF THE CONTEMPORARY INDIAN LITERATURE

 

 What is Realism - 

 

 

The attitude or practice of accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly.

 

Realism is the post civil war literary movement between 1865-1900. Realism directly opposes the previous movement 19th Century's Romanticism. It focuses on the harsh realities of life and gives the reader a true sense of “local color”.



In realism,you'll find characters with genuine jobs and problems. For example, a work of realism might chronicle the life of an average farmer. Rather than fun metaphors or imagery, a realistic writer would show you the undramatized life and dialect of the area.



Realistic fiction is a genre consisting of stories that could have actually occurred to people or animals in a believable setting. These stories resemble real life, and fictional characters within these stories react similarly to real people.

Literary realism is a literary movement that represents reality by portraying mundane, everyday experiences as they are in real life. It depicts familiar people, places, and stories, primarily about the middle and lower classes of society.


Realism Art - Young Shepperdes


Elements of Literary Realism
Realistic characters and setting.
Comprehensive detail about everyday occurrences.
Plausible plot (a story that could happen in your town)
Real dialects of the area.
Character development important.
Importance in depicting social class.



Common Examples of Themes in Realism
close, detailed, and comprehensive portrayal of reality.
emphasis on appearance of what is real and true.
importance of character over action and plot.
complex ethical decisions are often the subject matter.
characters appear real in their complexity, behavior, and motives.







Realism as an art movement was led by Gustave Courbet in France. It spread across Europe and was influential for the rest of the century and beyond.




Do what you see, what you feel, that you want -
Gustave Courbet


Since we are discussing Realism in literature, I am leaving art apart.




William Dean Howells's The Rise of Silas Lapham, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, and Horatio Alger, Jr.'s Ragged Dick all depict realistic characters from various pockets of American life as they grapple with war, racism, materialism, and upward mobility.

Also, Daniel Defoe, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzerald and Huckleberry Finn were advocates of Realism.



Magic Realism :

Magic realism is a style of literary fiction and art. It paints a realistic view of the world while also adding magical elements, often dealing with the blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality.

Magic realism, chiefly Latin-American narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction.


Prominent among the Latin-American magic realists are the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, the Brazilian Jorge Amado, the Argentines Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar, and the Chilean Isabel Allende.
Now let us examine the relevance of Realism in Indian literature.

Indian fiction in English witnessed a spurt in realist novels in the '80s and '90s. Realism came to an end in European fiction at the close of the 19th century, but in the Indian scenario, we witnessed its rebirth in the fiction of Mulk Raj Anand, R K Narayan, Raja Rao and many other stalwarts.

The contemporary Indian writers of Realism in English are Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy, Babani Bhattacherya, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni to name a few.

The regional language writers such as Malayalam authors M.Mukundan, O.V. Vijayan, Kakkanadan and P. Sachidanandan (pen name Anand) have written many novels depicting Realism as well as Existentialism.


Realism - A brief study of post colonial Literature :


Post colonial literature from India has been the staple diet of academics and scholars for over 40 years now. One thing that has not changed in all these years is the kind of texts that are included in the postcolonial literature courses. While varied texts from all over the world find place in the courses there is an unwillingness to look beyond literature that has not been written in English even when they are available in translation. For example, the translated Malayalam novel 'On the banks of the Mayyazhi' is a powerful and poignant portrayal of colonialism and its aftermath in the erstwhile French colony of Mahe. But this text has never been made it into any syllable in India or abroad even while it is available in English translation, while Indian English writings have come to represent postcolonial writing in India. Amitav Ghosh's 'The Hungry Tide' and M. Mukundan's 'On the Banks of the Mayyazhi', two novels set in special geographical areas, providing immense scope to showcase the peculiarities of the place and the people. Through a detailed analysis of the representation of the locals and the relationship between insiders and outsiders. While Ghosh's gaze resembles that of a tourist in the Sunderbans, Mukundan sketches the scape of the people of Mayyazhi. It has to be concluded that there is an intrinsic difference in the sensibility of writers who visit and write about their experiences and those who write about lived experiences.







EXISTENTIALISM :
Existentialism is a movement of 20th-century literature that focuses on the individual and his or her relationship with the universe or God. This existentialist tag has been applied to writers, philosophers, visual artist and film-makers; the movement flourished in Europe.


Existentialism is the philosophical belief we are each responsible for creating purpose or meaning in our own lives. Our individual purpose and meaning is not given to us by Gods, governments, teachers or other authorities.




Existentialism is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on the subjective experience of thinking, feeling and acting.





Existentialism enjoyed its most poplar phase in the French school, whose leading exponents were Albert Camus (1913), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-61), Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), and the German Franz Kafka (1883-1924).



Existentialism is the philosophical belief we are each responsible for creating purpose or meaning in our own lives. Our individual purpose and meaning is not given to us by Gods, governments, teachers or other authorities.



Basic Tenets of Existentialism
Fear, trembling and anxiety.
"Existence before Essence"
The Encounter of Nothingness and Freedom After Despair.
"Reason is impotent to deal with the depths of human life"
Alienation or Estrangement





Father of Existentialism

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) as an Existentialist Philosopher. Kierkegaard was many things: philosopher, religious writer, satirist, psychologist, journalist, literary critic and generally considered the 'father' of existentialism.




The most famous protagonists of Existentialism were Jean Paul

Sartre, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus and Paul Tillich.




The modern regional language writers such as Malayalam authors M.Mukundan, O.V. Vijayan, Kakkanadan and P. Sachidanandan (pen name Anand) have written many novels depicting realism as well as existentialism.