An attempt at realism

Realism in Literature is identified by text that is not overly dramatized and which focuses on the mundane. The story told could be of a life lived by any person, it doesn't require the reader to imagine a life lived in the upper echelon's of the tax bracket, rather it is the life lived by the person who mows their own lawn and works at the grocery store. Realism portrays life as it is and not as it could possibly be at its most pristine moment. This week in our American Literature class we read To Build a Fire, by Jack London as well as Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. Each story sits squarely in the genre of literary realism.

Chopin

London

In Chopin's story, the focus is on the main character, Mrs. Mallard, and her reactions to the events which unfold in the story. Attention should also be placed on the time in which the story is written for context. In London's story, the focus is as well placed on the reactions the main character has in relation to the environment. It is also important to note that London's story is a form of realism called naturalism which focuses on the "philosophic theory of determinism". (American Literary Naturalism) The decisions "the man" makes could not be made differently in the theory of determinism, and the ending of the story is the only ending that could ever be. In neither story is there ever an overly dramatized element. There is suspense but it is not created by fantastical events, it is created by the emotions that the story creates within us, the reader.

Today, I drove by a boarded up grocery store, two girls were standing there, one posing in the afternoon light against the wall and the other taking the photo. I bet that photo turns out to be amazing. The light was perfectly situated to create a dramatic shadow on one side of her face and I am sure the light also made her eyes pop. The photo will tell a story, maybe she is in a beautiful exotic locale with perfect skin and a perfect life. But I saw the moment. The place where the photo was taken. Against the wall of a boarded up grocery store just before sunset. The photo she will post is not realism, but what I saw was beautiful in its pure moment of life and being alive, that was real.

I am going to put myself out there to the three people on the internet that might come across my page and share a story that I am attempting to write in the form of realism. It isn't overly dramatized and could happen to any person, which is what I took realism to mean. Read if you please.

That Day

I was six years old, wearing my favorite blue Velcro Smurfs shoes. My little feet ran so fast after jumping out of my mom’s car when we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I ran up the sidewalk, being careful not to step on the cracks, and up the three steps made of red brick to the

mint green house with white metal curved awnings. My Grandma, Great-Grandma actually, drove a matching mint green ‘57 Chevy and she drove it fast. My grandpa wouldn’t ride in the car with her, he would walk instead or he would just stay home. I ran into the house full of anticipation and excitement, expecting the smell of fresh tortillas and the arms that were always waiting to scoop me up into a warm hug. The pure and innocent excitement of a child, happy to see their favorite person.

Running through the front door into the living room, I was not met by the warm comforting smells of cooking food, but with people that weren’t my Grandma; that was fine, I was just not expecting them. My mom didn’t tell me that family was coming, but Grandma had just gotten out of the hospital for a quick surgery on an ingrown toenail, so it made sense that family would come to visit. We had visited her just two days before at the hospital and I gave her a musical porcelain wind-up bear that was tucked into a porcelain bed with a blue porcelain comforter. My mom and I picked it up at the hospital’s gift shop before going up to visit. I sat on her hospital bed with her and we talked. I told her that I couldn’t wait for her to get back home. She would be home in just a couple of days.

I made my way through the living room and into the kitchen with its yellow linoleum floor, looking up at the faces which then looked back down at me. Being so small it was easy to quickly weave through the hips and hands that weren’t the hips and hands that I was seeking. Not in the kitchen. Grandma was not in the kitchen. She was not in the living room. Maybe she was in the garage? Past the refrigerator and out the side door into the garage, down the two wooden steps and there were more people but not her. All of these people. They were family but I wanted to see Grandma; I wanted to see her safe at home and out of the hospital. Home, where Grandma lived.

Now, slowing down and confused because I had already looked in all of the places that she would normally be when company was at the house, I finally stopped and said, “where is Grandma?” An adult face looked down at me, standing in the gray garage, I heard the words, “Honey, Grandma died.”

Out, out, out. Out through the open garage door into the day. Down the driveway, running.

Hang a right, running. Down the sidewalk, running away. If I ran fast enough away from those words, away from those people that knew a truth that I didn’t want to know, I could shed the knowledge and make it false. One hand grasping for my right shoulder, then another hand on my left shoulder, trying to catch me, to keep me from running away. My mom. She had been chasing me from the moment she parked the car. She ran up the sidewalk, up the three red brick steps to the house that no longer held that special life within its four exterior walls. Through the living room, the kitchen, the garage, where she heard someone say, “What? I thought she knew.” Out the

open garage door, down the driveway, right turn onto the sidewalk to chase after her tiny little girl whose heart was just obliterated by life and death in tandem. I collapsed into my mom’s arms leaving a piece of me there on the sidewalk. That piece is still there, sitting cross-legged in little blue Velcro Smurfs shoes, waiting for time to start moving forward again.

Kara Nassoiy

References:

“American Literary Naturalism.” Faculty.tamuc.edu, faculty.tamuc.edu/kroggenkamp/archive/English519Naturalism.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CRealism%20is%20a%20manner%20and.

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