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Stephen Crane: American Realist. Stephen Crane – The Early Years Born in 1871 in Newark, NJ Briefly wanted to become a professional baseball player Believed.

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Presentation on theme: "Stephen Crane: American Realist. Stephen Crane – The Early Years Born in 1871 in Newark, NJ Briefly wanted to become a professional baseball player Believed."— Presentation transcript:

1 Stephen Crane: American Realist

2 Stephen Crane – The Early Years Born in 1871 in Newark, NJ Briefly wanted to become a professional baseball player Believed writers should immerse themselves in their subject

3 Stephen Crane – Author Crane’s first book, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), was about the Bowery slum in New York City. Crane lived in the Bowery to gather data to make his book realistic. He financed the publication of the book with his own money.

4 Stephen Crane – Author Crane's next novel, The Red Badge of Courage (1895), gained him international recognition. It is about a young soldier in the Civil War (1861-1865) who wrestles with bravery in battle.

5 Stephen Crane – Author Crane was employed as a reporter in several military conflicts, including the Greco- Turkish War (1897) and the Spanish-American War (1898) in Cuba. He was shipwrecked off of Florida while sailing to Cuba. His ordeal while at sea in a life raft was turned into his popular short story, “The Open Boat. “The Open Boat” is considered a perfect example of naturalism.

6 Stephen Crane – Later Life Crane moved to England with his lover, a former madam from Jacksonville, FL, in 1897. He died of tuberculosis in 1900 at the age of twenty- eight.

7 The “-isms” of Crane Naturalism –Humans are unable to control their lives because Nature is in control; humans can only respond to environmental forces; humans are no higher than animals, always at mercy to Nature. Realism –Striving to uphold actuality in literature –Opposite of Romanticism, which was more idealistic

8 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -- Context Before the Civil War, the U.S. absorbed millions of immigrants, mostly from Northern Europe. –Many were from Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. After the Civil War, America again experienced a major wave of immigration which brought over 30 million people to the United States. Many of the immigrants in this period were Russians, Italians, Poles, and others from eastern and southern Europe, including many Jews.

9 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -- Context New York City was a major depot for immigrants; they would land at Ellis Island (Statue of Liberty). Many of these immigrants were forced to live in overcrowded areas called tenements.

10 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -- Context The tenements were often without heat, lighting, or sanitation; unscrupulous landlords charged high rents as well. In factories and garment sweatshops, people worked long hours for low wages in unsafe or unhealthful conditions.

11 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -- Context Here’s a quote from an Irish immigrant about living in a tenement in the early 1840s: –Nights and Days, we'd sit there sweating through our clothes and listening to the sounds of feet in the hallways, babies crying frantically and the roar of machinery in the area. In the winter times we froze to death. Five of us huddled in a bed to keep warm. We had no water. We constantly had to draw dirty water from the sewer and clean ourselves with it. We had no other alternative.

12 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -- Context Alcoholism was rampant in the tenements. –Beer and wine were very cheap. Violence was commonplace. One famous tenement district in New York City was the Bowery.

13 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -- Context By the time of the Civil War, the Bowery was full of brothels, beer gardens, and flophouses. –Brothels – houses filled with prostitutes –Beer Gardens – open-air area where alcohol is legally served –Flophouses – a place that offers very cheap lodging with minimal services It also had many street gangs and rampant crime.

14 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -- Context Women living in the late 1800s were subject to a rigid behavioral code that was enforced with no regards for class, age, etc. Women were supposed to adhere to a different standard than men, especially in regards to intimate behavior. Sometimes the mere hint of premarital sex would ruin a woman’s reputation and handicap her chances of marriage, regardless if the charge was proven. In many cases, if a woman was not married by a certain age (usually by the age of 21) then she would be doomed to be an “old maid.”

15 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Things to Consider While Reading –Hypocrisy –Naturalism –Realism –Life in the Slums –Intolerance –Self-righteousness –Irony –Human Cruelty –A Woman’s Place in Society –Prostitution –Fatalism –Indifference


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